The Dark Door Opens

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The Dark Door Opens Joe Dever and John Grant

Copyright (c) 2003 Joe Dever and John Grant

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Contents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

In the Forest Rescues Tunnelling Toran The Brotherhood of the Crystal Star Alema Bridge Doomwolves The Graveyard of the Ancients Victories and Defeats Her Smiling Brown Eyes

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1 In the Forest 1 "We'd better get back into the shelter of the trees," said Banedon nervously. "There are kraan everywhere." "You go. I'll follow you. I just want to do something first." As he raced across the grass Lone Wolf blessed the fact that his green tunic and cape afforded him some slight camouflage. Beside the remains of one of the giaks was its wicked-looking black serrated sword. Moving as smoothly and as swiftly as he could, he caught it up by its handle and scurried to where Banedon was hiding. "You need a weapon," he gasped. "A giak sword may not be exactly what you'd have chosen, but it's the best I can do right now. Here, take it." Reluctantly the magician reached out a hand to accept the weapon, but as soon as he wrapped his fingers around the hilt he was filled with a revulsion so intense that it was physically painful. It was as if the sword were a container not just of passive deadness but of an active, eager deathliness. He gagged, and threw the weapon back onto the grass of the clearing. "I'm sorry. I can't accept your gift." Lone Wolf was mystified and annoyed. "Don't be stupid. If you're attacked by a kraan you're almost certainly done for, but with a weapon you've got at least a glimmer of a chance." He moved to retrieve the sword. "No! Don't!" Banedon cried, his thin, sallow face pouring with perspiration. His yellow hair was wet. "Don't you realize -- I can't touch that . . . that thing." "Oh, for the love of Kai . . ." began Lone Wolf impatiently, but the magician interrupted him. "Can't you feel it?" "Feel what?" "Feel the soul of the sword. It's evil. It's cruel. It's . . ." Banedon's words stumbled to a halt. He realized how inadequate they sounded. He tried again. "I -- I think that if I carried that sword my soul would become like that, too." "I felt nothing. It's just a weapon, that's all." Lone Wolf shrugged. "It's not a mortal weapon."

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"You wouldn't expect it to be. Giaks aren't mortals. They're spawn. They don't have souls." "Well, whatever it was I . . ." It was pointless for Banedon to carry on. "It's no use. I can't explain to you. But there's no way I can touch it." A crashing of branches overhead startled them both, and they each reacted in their own ways. Lone Wolf moved instantly into a crouch, his double-bladed axe grasped in both hands, ready for immediate combat. Banedon dived behind a bush and prepared himself for the worst. He knew the shapes of the thoughts that he needed if he were to send sizzling energies to slay the foe, but his reserves of resistance were woefully depleted from the exquisite pain of performing magic. The higher adepts of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star were capable of staving off such pain for long periods, but he was only the humblest of initiates. The splintering sounds had been caused by a kraan. The large batlike creature, with its viciously sharp talons and its long, cruel beak, had caught one of its wings on a branch high above their heads and was struggling to free itself. With single-minded ferocity it clawed at the branch and, when that failed, began slashing away at its own wing. Drops of green-grey ichor spattered around them. "Quick!" snapped Lone Wolf. "That beast may have seen us. If it has, and if it gets free, it'll report where we are. We've got to get well clear." Banedon was slow to respond. "Move!" Lone Wolf dragged him by the arm deeper among the trees. At last Banedon's body began to obey orders, and the two of them stumbled through the dense undergrowth. They were making a fair deal of noise, but they hadn't the time to worry about that -- with luck the sound would be drowned out by the thrashings of the entangled kraan. It was impossible for them to tell how long had passed when Banedon crashed to the brown mossy ground, gasping and clutching his side. "It's no use," he half-wept. "You go on without me." Lone Wolf leant on the haft of his axe and looked down at the squirming form of his companion. "I think we've gone far enough. Anyway, to be honest, I'm pretty tired as well. But we can't rest for long. We've got to keep moving." Far above them they could hear the cackles of hundreds of circling kraan as well as the shrieks of flocks of disoriented birds, shocked from their nests by the dawn invasion. Away in the distance there were agonized human screams; Zagarna's troops must have found other fugitives in the

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forest. But as far as Lone Wolf could tell there were no giaks nearby. "What are your plans, magician?" he said, deliberately keeping his voice steady. "I think . . . I think I must try to get back to Toran. If the forces of the Darklands have destroyed the Monastery, surely the annihilation of our Brotherhood must be their next objective." Banedon's words came out in puffy little jerks, yet it seemed that his mind was clear again. "I may not be much of a magician, Lone Wolf, and I'm certainly no fighter. But I'd never forgive myself if I let them all die the way that you Kai were slaughtered." Lone Wolf saw red. "It was none of my fault that I couldn't fight Zagarna's hordes," he said, lips tight, his voice quiet. "I knocked myself out on a branch as I was running to help my comrades. It was like someone had put the branch in my way." He realized how thin his explanation sounded, but to his surprise Banedon nodded. The apprentice magician, for some reason he hardly knew, had suddenly thought of Alyss. That sounded like the way she might work. Her powers were colossal, but she was far from omnipotent. She wasn't a god -he didn't know quite what she was. That she opposed the forces of Darkness was something that he knew. It came to him that she had probably played no little part in sparing Lone Wolf from the massacre. The thought raised his spirits. If she could act to save Lone Wolf, then perhaps she might help him too. She had said as much when they first met. Perhaps he would live. Lone Wolf caught something of Banedon's thoughts from the expressions on the magician's face. "You look as if you know something I don't," he said. "I told you about my friend," Banedon said, pulling himself up to his knees. "You know, Alyss. I think she's helping us -- both you and me." I thought you'd never guess, Banedon, said a voice in both of their minds. Banedon recognized it instantly, and welcomed it with warmth. Hello, he let his mind say. And hello to you, too, but I don't have much time right now for idle prattle. I'll do all I can, but I can't promise anything. Your best course is to go to Toran. Lone Wolf has other things to do. You and he, if all goes well, will meet many times in the future. By the way, you're looking pretty ridiculous. Your hair's a real shambles. The voice was gone. Lone Wolf staggered backwards.

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Strength seemed to fill Banedon as he raised himself to his feet. "Yes," said the magician, "that's what I've got to do. I've got to return to Toran and give my Guild whatever assistance I can." Lone Wolf's heart lifted, but he carefully disguised the fact. Companionship was one thing; the encumbrance of an incompetent tagging along was another. And yet it was part of the teachings he had been given that his duty as a Kai was to protect the weak with all of his courage and ability. So he repeated: "If you liked, we could travel together -- but I must go to Holmgard. I have to warn the king. Once we've reached Holmgard I can ask that you be sent back to Toran with an escort of the king's warriors." "There's no need," said Banedon. "But you're defenceless!" "Not entirely. I have my magic to assist me." Lone Wolf coughed. The noise was as communicative as any words. "Oh," said Banedon, and he smiled. All trace of fear seemed to have vanished from him. "I think my magic will be enough to keep me safe. Just enough, if I know Alyss. I'll have to be careful, of course, but . . . well, don't worry about me." Lone Wolf couldn't believe the transformation that had taken place in the magician. The quivering youth who had seemed until just a little while ago to be such a liability was now almost visibly gaining in stature. "What's happening?" he said. "I told you about Alyss . . ." "Permit me to disbelieve you," said Lone Wolf, a little stuffily. Yet he was far from as dismissive as he made out. Something -- someone? -- had altered Banedon completely. There had been that voice in his own mind. Either there was indeed a "friend" called Alyss or, at the very least, Banedon had a false faith that there was, and that faith alone was flooding him with confidence. Whichever, it didn't matter. Lone Wolf had done his best to persuade Banedon to come with him, and the magician had declined the offer. "We go our separate ways, then," he said. "But not for long." The magician was struggling out of his brightly coloured robe and turning it inside-out. The inside was a dun colour, not dissimilar to the easy browns of much of the shrubbery around them. "What do you mean?" "Just," said Banedon lazily, tugging a long stalk of grass and sucking it, "that I know now that our lives from here on will be intertwined." He pulled his robe back on again. Now he blended much more with the forest.

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"This 'Alyss' of yours told you that, I suppose?" "That's right." Lone Wolf snorted. Banedon continued, ignoring Lone Wolf's disbelief. "Before I set off for Toran, there's something I want to give you. A symbol of our allegiance." Silently, reverently, he unclasped from around his neck a gold chain bearing a pendant in the shape of the Crystal Star. It glinted in the uneasy sunlight that filtered down through the trees, spinning as it dangled from the chain. There was something slightly unnatural about the pendant, but Lone Wolf couldn't tell what it was. It was as if, no matter how much he narrowed his eyes, he still couldn't see the little artefact properly. He blinked. "Take it," said Banedon. "There's no greater gift that an allegiate of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star can give you. It represents the fact that we're fellows -- not just now, but in all the times to come. And it may give you some good fortune in times of need. "Go on," he added, as Lone Wolf looked reluctant. "Take it." The Kai accepted the gift and, rather sheepishly, put the chain around his own neck. "Until the next time we meet," said the magician. He proffered his hand, and Lone Wolf dumbly shook it. Banedon melted away among the trees, moving in almost absolute silence. 2 Vonotar swooped down to the ruins of the Kai Monastery. His eyes surveyed the carnage, yet he felt no emotions whatsoever. His thoughts were still stunned by what Alyss had done to him during their long battle in the skies. Before their duel he had been a strong man in his early thirties and, thanks to the fusion in him of the Crystal Star's Left Hand magic and the Right Hand magic of Zagarna's Nadziranim, had had the power to retain his youth almost forever. Yet Alyss had forced age upon him: he was still virtually an immortal being, but through all the rest of his life he would be a stooping old man, with thin white hair and wrinkled skin, his eyes sunk deep into their sockets above bony taut cheeks. His back was crooked, as if knotted by the passage of decades. He limped towards the wreckage. The sunlight was a ruddy brown, here close beneath the leaping flames and the tower of thick, greasy smoke. The flies were gathering in their millions, attracted by the blood and

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the broken bodies. The corpses of Kai warriors -- men, women, even young children -- lay tumbled among the lacerated forms of kraan, zlanbeast, crypt spawn and, of course, giaks. He dimly recalled that, only a few days before, he would have been revolted by the sight and by the pervasive smells of spilt blood and ichor, burning flesh, and smouldering hair. But that had been before -- that had been in an earlier life. Although he still wore the blue star-studded robe of an allegiate of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, he no longer regarded himself as any part of that Guild. Now, now he was Zagarna's comrade-inarms. He had seen all of Aon through the Darklord's eyes, and he had conversed with Naar, King of the Darkness. He had allowed himself to become infused with the mad, frenzied joys of Evil. He hobbled with difficulty among the fractured masonry and the shattered human forms. He could have flown over them, of course, but he was seeking prey. During their duel -- as Alyss had transported them from illusion to illusion above the clouds -- he had experienced her powers and recognized them as at least equal to his own. Before either of them could administer the fatal blow, however, she had abruptly announced to him that she was the victor and that the battle was over. He recalled the words she had spoken in his mind. . . . you have given me a very useful gift. Just a little time. As I said, I can't change the future very much, but with your help -- and whether you know it or not you've been helping me -- I can alter it just very slightly more. Enough to ensure that, by the time you return to the reality which belongs to Magnamund, it will be too late for you to do something which I don't want you to do. Vonotar's thoughts had screamed: What? Alyss's response had been cool. Take a single life -- a very important life. And whose life might that be? The life of a boy. Which boy? I think I've told you enough . . . Their mental exchange still haunted him. Perhaps, despite her boasts, he would be in time to seek out this boy and personally destroy him. If the boy's life were a matter of such moment to Alyss, then surely it could only mean that he stood between Zagarna and the conquest of Sommerlund. Vonotar had few illusions about the character of his ally: Zagarna was

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lethally dangerous at the best of times, but when thwarted by even the most minor frustration he dealt out death indiscriminately to those around him. Vonotar had confidence in his own magical prowess, and believed it would be sufficient to repel any attack on him which the Darklord might make, but he had no wish, as yet, to take the risk. Ever since he had deliberately linked his mind with Zagarna's he had been aware of the possibility that, perhaps, some of his own powers might have inculcated themselves into the Darklord. Besides, he knew that at the core of Zagarna's brain -- his intellect -- there was nothing of the Darklord, only a pocket of the pure stuff that was Naar, King of the Darkness. Vonotar did not flatter himself that his abilities equalled the almost unimaginable powers of Naar. There was movement among the ruins. Vonotar's eyes moved as swiftly as a serpent's tongue. The motion had come from over there, to his right, about a hundred yards away. A slight figure -- like that of a boy -- was moving from corpse to corpse, feeling inside pockets and ripping ornaments from tunics. Whoever this was was intent upon the task, and hadn't noticed the wizard's approach. Clearly confident that he would go undisturbed, he worked methodically. He was almost gentle as he lifted a woman's head to remove a bauble that had hung around her neck. And he was dressed in the uniform of the Kai. This must be the boy whose life Alyss had tried to save! Even now he was collecting talismans to assist him in his plans to avoid the wrath of the Darklord. Vonotar allowed himself a wintry inward smile. His cold mind moved swiftly to shape a Nadziranim thought, and he moulded it carefully, enjoying the sensation. So Alyss had hoped to foil him, had she? The impertinence of her! He aimed his thought at the slight figure. The scavenger exploded into a cascade of voracious rats, which rapidly scattered among the tortured flesh around them, eager for feeding. With the sense of a job well done, Vonotar launched himself back into the skies. He threw himself high above the racked countryside, revelling in the sight of the smoke from a thousand fires, the swooping platoons of kraan, and the untold human agonies he could sense. The tableau was a visible manifestation of the outcome of the Darklord's wrath, and Vonotar rejoiced in it. He felt a giggle in his mind, but he ignored it. He would recall it only some time later, when Zagarna would wonder

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out loud about whatever might have happened to the drakkar he had ordered to go and hunt out the talismans of the slaughtered Kai . . . 3 Lone Wolf pressed on deeper into the forest. His progress became slower and slower as the undergrowth grew thicker and thicker. Every time he came to a clearing he checked the skies cautiously for any signs of the spying kraan. If there seemed to be none, he leapt into the open and as swiftly as possible gained an approximate bearing from the sun. His aim was to head as best he could towards the southeast, in the direction of Holmgard. Often these sightings told him that, in the muted light under the massive trees, he had been travelling quite the wrong way: once he even discovered that he had spent the previous half an hour going north. Cursing a few times, he had amended his course. There was something rather soothing about the dimness. He had always felt natural wandering through forests, as if in some way he were in direct communion with the trees. Even when -- as he often had to -- he slashed with his axe through a thicket, he had a sense that somehow the trees understood his necessity. He saw the pale flowers that grew here in the faint light; he let his lips curl back in one of his rare smiles when a small forest creature started out from underfoot and bolted rapidly away to some private hiding-place; he heard the branches rustling high above him, the sound blending with the furtive noises of woodland animals all around. He felt as if he, too, were a wild animal -- truly the wolf of his name. Now, though, he was being watched. He knew it. All Kai were taught to develop their sixth sense, so that they could be warned of imminent danger. Lone Wolf had been a lazy student, yet even he had been able to tap some of this latent ability. He whirled around to look back along the path he had been blazing, but he could see nothing. Slowly he turned, his axe held ready for combat, his eyes seeking out all the darkest places among the poorly lit foliage. A grey toad sat on a moss-covered rock and belched at him dolefully. Midges shone silvery as they clouded about in the gloaming. The trees in this part of the forest were largely conifers, and the thick carpet of their fallen needles muffled all sounds. He held his breath. Still he could hear nothing other than the forest's

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natural noises. Yet he believed what his sixth sense was telling him: he had never known it to lie. Suddenly there was a noise, off to his left. Instinctively he ducked, cupping his wrists around his head, and the black arrow that had been aimed at his heart whined narrowly over his shoulder. He recovered himself within moments, and confronted a patrol of four giaks, their yellow eyes glowing in the half-darkness. He gestured with his axe, giving a terse threatening growl. The giaks flinched, but advanced steadily. The archer among them was nocking another arrow to his bow. Lone Wolf looked to left and right. There seemed to be no giaks on his flanks, but his glances had had to be so perfunctory that he might have been wrong. As to what might lie behind him . . . he did not dare turn back to look, for the quartet ahead would instantly have rushed him. His ideal would have been to flee along the course he had been trying to follow. Yet the scrub was thick there. An arrow would skewer him before he had gone more than ten yards. Besides, he saw that his attackers were standing on a slightly cleared line which, obviously, had once been a path through the forest. It was overgrown, but not too thickly. He chanced his luck. "Oh, well, I suppose you have me," he said. He shrugged his shoulders, and for the merest instant allowed his axe to look as if it were out of his control. Then he sprang to one side and, with a screamed battle-cry, ran directly towards the giaks. The archer's shot went wildly wide. Lone Wolf's axe cut right through the giak's bow, its bowstring and into its shoulder. Ichor spurted as the giak screamed through its sharp-toothed mouth, its eyes nictating in agony as its arm and half of its side toppled away from the rest of its body. Lone Wolf put his foot in its chest and shoved, freeing his weapon. He swung his axe downwards so that it continued past his left ankle and then straight up to catch one of the other attackers directly under the chin. The giak's sword flew out of its hand and tumbled away into a clump of bracken. Spittle dripped unnoticed from Lone Wolf's lips as he turned to confront his remaining two assailants. Their eyes shone yellowly in their grey faces: thinking nothing of the loss of their companions, they were eagerly moving in for the kill. He saw their vile tongues flickering. In the dim light their black swords were almost invisible, but Lone Wolf could hear

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them swishing threateningly through the air. Surprise had gained him a few moments' advantage, but that was all. These were mountain giaks, the most vicious and determined of their kind. Their skills with weapons were legendary. If he fought them hand-to-hand he would most assuredly die. His mind moved swiftly. Even the cleverest of giaks were not very clever. "Behind you!" he shouted suddenly, pointing. Sure enough, the oldest of tactics worked. Momentarily the giaks' attention was diverted. The delay was just enough for Lone Wolf to turn and run. He knew that he could move more swiftly through the low weeds of the path than could the giaks, with their short stubby legs. Now that the archer was dead he had nothing to fear unless one of them was skilled in knife-throwing. Roots snatched at his ankles as he ran, but he ignored them. There was another area of brightness up ahead: he sprinted towards it as fast as he could. Thin, low twigs whipped across his face. He almost lost his axe when it caught in the cleft between two branches; he cursed luridly as he wasted a couple of seconds working it free. He burst into the light to find himself confronted by a rocky hillside. Heather and gorse covered the low slope. This was the last thing he wanted. He might outrun the giaks on level ground, but on a slope they would lope easily after him until they caught him and slew him. He ran around the hill for perhaps a hundred yards, taking advantage of the fact that he had started so far ahead of his pursuers, and then plunged back once more into the forest. Almost as an afterthought, he flung one of his green gloves out into the clearing. He paused for a moment to see if the stratagem had deceived the giaks, and certainly this seemed to be the case. Seeing the glove, they turned their festering eyes towards the hillside, trying to pick out his climbing form. They chittered between each other for a few seconds until they came to a conclusion, and then they began their preternaturally rapid ascent of the slope, like geckoes scuttling up a whitewashed wall. Lone Wolf watched them briefly, and then cautiously retreated further in among the trees. His axe was covered in giak ichor, and he spent a short while wiping its blades off on some reddish moss. He allowed himself to rest for several minutes before pushing ahead.

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At the Kai Monastery he had been trained for physical fitness -indeed, that was the part of his education which he had most enjoyed. By contrast, he had been lax in his studies of the more cerebral of the Kai Disciplines, a fact which now he regretted. Yet, despite all his strength and stamina, he was utterly exhausted. He thought back to Banedon -- poor, slight, spotty-faced Banedon -- and wondered how the magician was getting on. Banedon had seemed to be totally drained, and then somehow had acquired a self-knowledge that had given him strength. Lone Wolf wished he himself could perform the same trick. Maybe Banedon had been right -perhaps there really was a "friend" of his called Alyss. When at last he felt able to continue he picked himself up and pressed on. Soon he came to a track. It seemed to be going roughly southeast, so he followed it, prepared at any moment to leap to one side or another should he spot a patrol of giaks. However, the track was a false one, perhaps created by wild animals, for soon it petered out. He was faced once more by dense undergrowth -little shrubs with flowers of an artificial-seeming yellow, blue creepers which wrapped themselves in a stranglehold around other plants, a tangle of grasses whose lurid greens almost offended the eye. He used his sword like a scythe to cut his way through them. Beyond was a rather more threatening barrier -- a wall of gallowbrush. This briar-type shrub, nicknamed "sleeptooth" by those familiar with the forest, displayed sharp crimson thorns which contained a soporific poison. His old tutor, Storm Hawk, had warned him against gallowbrush, for a scratch from one of those thorns could reduce a person to a dreamless sleep. There were Kai Disciplines to counter the effects of the drug, but Lone Wolf had never thought it worth his while to learn them. Now, of course, he wished he had decided otherwise -- but it was as always too late for such regrets. He thought of retreating, but a renewed burst of cackling overhead dissuaded him. It was possible the kraan were tracking him; more likely that they were still systematically combing the forest, looking for any surviving Sommlending. He dropped to his hands and knees, and then onto his belly. He moved snakewise through the lower plants of the forest. He smelled the raw earth. He saw the humbler insects scuttle away from his nose. Would the kraan look for him in the midst of a thicket of sleeptooth? No. Only a fool would take the risk of crawling through a clump of it.

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So -- then he was a fool. But fools survive where heroes lose their lives. He was uncertain about his qualifications for heroism; but he happily acknowledged his own capacity for folly. If it saved his life, and if it enabled him to reach Holmgard, he was perfectly prepared to be a fool. He nosed his way forward, moving very slowly indeed. Down here, with his face pressed against the moss, the world seemed very different. He noticed tiny flowers which he had never seen before: during his walks in the woods, in the years before the destruction of the Kai Monastery, he had prided himself on his knowledge of their flora and fauna; now he admitted to himself that his understanding had been only partial. Moreover, he found he had to reassess his ideas of scale: the minute insects which fled from his advancing face were, in terms of their own worlds, like giants: it came to him that there must be much more minuscule creatures which, even at this close range, were invisible to him. He tried to pretend to himself that he was one of those tiniest of insects. Perhaps if he could persuade himself fully enough, the marauding kraan would be unable to detect him from above. Soon he was among the roots of the sleeptooth. The plants were woody and green, but their thorns were red and threatening. Still inching forwards on his stomach, Lone Wolf slid as best he could through this miniature forest. The first time his trouser-leg was snagged by a thorn which tore through to break his flesh he almost panicked, but he forced himself to accept the pain in stillness. He lay motionless for a few seconds, counting to ten to calm himself down, then continued to pick his way onward. Several minutes passed before he was cut by another thorn -- this time in the cheek. He could feel the effects of the poison already. All he really wanted to do was to turn over onto his back and sleep. Yet he forced himself to keep moving, spurring his mind every time it tried to instruct his body to give up. Despite his efforts, his coordination was becoming poor. More and more often, however much he tried to avoid them, he felt his body lacerated by the cruelly sharp thorns. Now he was experiencing no pain from them: his body was filled only by a tremendous lethargy which threatened to reduce him to motionlessness. He forced himself to remember that he was the last of the Kai, that he alone had been entrusted by that mysterious voice in his mind to bring the news of the Monastery's destruction to the king at Holmgard. His first blackout caught him by surprise. It was followed soon after

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by another. Each time he collapsed he toppled over sideways so that his back was raked by further thorns. His vision swam in and out of focus as he attempted clumsily to writhe his way through the stalks of the thicket. The head of his axe draggled around his ankles, so that he had to avoid slashing his feet on its twin blades. And then, suddenly, his head was in the open air. His vision was swirling and his contact with consciousness was tenuous. Nevertheless, he had enough energy left to pull the rest of his body free from the clutches of the gallowbrush. But that was about all. He collapsed this time onto a bed of pine needles. Grunting loudly with effort, he pulled himself up again to his hands and knees, expecting that at any moment a kraan would descend from the heights to claim his life. His breath hoarse and straining, Lone Wolf crawled towards a wall of welcoming trees. 4 Toran had escaped Zagarna's assault on Sommerlund -- at least for the moment. Vonotar had persuaded the Darklord that even his own Nadziranim-enhanced powers would be insufficient, on their own, to combat the massed magicians of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. As a result of Vonotar's urgings, Zagarna had determined to wait until the Kai Monastery and its surrounding region had been razed before moving against Toran. The city -- with its forty-yard-thick walls of semi-sentient stone -- waited, its inhabitants knowing full well that the cloud of flying spawn which had crossed the skies in the hours before dawn would soon be returning. The Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star sat alone in the Guild's hall, brooding. He was increasingly conscious of his age. He had once, long ago, planned that Vonotar should succeed him, but now the impetuous fool had deserted to the forces of Darkness. The Guildmaster had hoped -- however much he had once liked the headstrong magician -- that Vonotar would die during his foolhardy journey to Zagarna's mighty cityfortress of Kaag, deep in the Darklands, far beyond the Durncrag Mountains. But the swarm of spawn the guards had reported as blotting out the moon and stars were physical confirmation that Vonotar's quest had succeeded. The day before, the Guildmaster had used scrying to perceive that indeed this would happen, but he had hoped that for once his precognition had been

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incorrect. There was little that could be done now, he recognized, to save the Monastery: like everyone else of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star he had felt the death-agonies of the Kai. The immediate problem to hand was how best to defend Toran. He had an inkling that Vonotar might now have absorbed the knowledge of the Nadziranim, and might therefore possess magical powers hitherto unknown on Magnamund. The Guildmaster chewed away a little flesh at the side of one of his fingernails. Then he frowned at what he had done: this was a habit which he had thought abandoned forever during his childhood. He shaped an irritated thought and the finger was whole once more. An affected cough echoed gently round the hall, and the Guildmaster looked up. Standing in one of the doorways was Loren. Loren had always been among the more ineffectual of the Guild's Elders, but the Guildmaster had an affection for the man. Weak he might be -- and too interested in exploring the forbidden zones of Nadziranim magic -- yet he was honest through and through, and there was nothing spiteful in him. Still, Loren's personality had always been so featureless that he'd remained on the periphery of the Guildmaster's consciousness. The Guildmaster gestured him towards one of the comfortable seats near to his own. It was only when Loren's feet failed to make any sound as they crossed the tiled mosaic of the hall's floor that the Guildmaster abruptly remembered . . . "Loren!" he cried, throwing himself backwards. "But I thought you were dead! We found the pieces of you and . . ." "I am indeed dead," Loren confirmed, as if they were talking about the freshness of vegetables or the state of the weather. "As you rightly believed, Vonotar killed me before he fled from here." "Then . . ." "No, you don't believe in ghosts. Thanks, I will sit down if you don't mind." Loren seated himself, wriggling until he was comfortable. "You're quite right: there aren't any such things as ghosts. Don't be frightened. I'm not the walking dead, or anything like that." Like the living Loren, this spectre was prim to the point of fastidiousness. He pursed his lips and smoothed his robe carefully over his bony knees.

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"Then what are you?" said the Guildmaster. For a moment he had felt fear, but now he was relaxed. In his long lifetime practising magic at the highest level, he had seen many things that seemed more impossible than a return from the dead. "I'm a construct born from your own mind," said Loren. "You trust none of your living Elders to advise you, and thus you've brought me into existence so that we can discuss how best to defend Toran -- and, more importantly, this place, the Guildhall of the Crystal Star -- from the ravages of Zagarna's hordes. I would rather like a drink." There was water in a jug on the table before the Guildmaster, and he filled a tumbler with it. As he gave the glass to Loren their hands touched, and the Guildmaster felt chilly flesh and bone. Was he dreaming? Had he fallen asleep, here in the hot, dusty hall, pondering over the problems facing the Guild -- indeed, facing Sommerlund? He settled himself back into his chair. The ghost -- if ghost it was -- of Loren drank deeply and appreciatively of the water. "That's better," he said, putting the empty tumbler down on the cold floor beside his feet. "Now perhaps we can talk for a few minutes. I'm sorry that I can't give you any more time than that, but sooner or later you're going to stop believing in my existence, and then I'll . . . well, once again I'll be nothing more than a memory." The Guildmaster kept silence for a few moments. In breach of the Brotherhood's conventions he essayed a mental probe, but there was no response from Loren. Exactly as one might have expected if this were indeed a product created by his own thoughts. On the other hand, there was an alternative explanation . . . "Well," said the Guildmaster in due course, with an artificial affability, "what would you advise me to do?" Loren showed immediate animation. He leaned forward, one elbow on his knee, and pointed a finger at the Guildmaster. "You must see," he said, "indeed, anyone with any sense must see, that this is the final war between Sommerlund and the forces of Naar, and that this time Sommerlund is doomed. Zagarna's armies are undefeatable. They'll destroy the land, and its people, as surely as a candle destroys a moth, unless you do something about it." The finger had stabbed at the air, emphasizing the word "you". "And the only thing you can do, my friend, my Guildmaster, is to surrender the powers of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star to Zagarna. That

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way the Guild's members will survive and the Darklord might be prevailed upon to spare Toran as well as the rest of Sommerlund." "I don't believe you." "Why not? The Left Hand knowledge of your magicians, allied with that of the Nadziranim, has created a being of immense power -- Vonotar. None can stand against him. Imagine what the result would be if the entire Brotherhood of the Crystal Star were united with the Nadziranim!" The Guildmaster pulled his fingers through his grey beard. "I imagine," he said, "that there would be great benefit to the forces of Evil." "'Evil'! 'Good'!" said Loren. "What do the words really mean? They're just abstract concepts. They're born from the minds of human beings. Who's to say that what you call 'good' isn't something that's really evil, and the other way around? Ask Zagarna what's the meaning of the word 'good' and he'll tell you that it's the wreaking of death and destruction. Of course, your very first reaction is to disagree -- profoundly -- but have you really thought about the subject? Have you ever wondered within yourself why you think some things are 'good' and others 'evil'? Isn't it possible that you're thinking purely in terms of classifications? Could it not be that the true 'evil' is to let your thoughts run counter to those of the rest of the creatures of Magnamund?" The Guildmaster's pet kitten, Grey One, scampered across the hall and leapt up onto his lap. Grey One looked at Loren and bared her tiny teeth with a hiss. "I disagree," said the Guildmaster, stroking the kitten's bristling fur. "You talk of 'good' and you talk of 'evil', but you seem frightened to talk of Good and Evil. Of course there are many things which some people, because of their opinions, describe as 'good' or 'evil' and yet which other people regard as being neither. The labels are used loosely. In this very hall I have heard men and women who refuse to worship Ishir or Kai described as 'evil', yet those men and women have been kind parents and good friends: their 'evil', if it is an evil at all, is a very tiny one, and the gods are forgiving. I've castigated their accusers for their bigotry. All this is a far cry, my friend, from the difference between Good and Evil." Loren was about to respond when the Guildmaster leapt to his feet. Grey One scrambled to the floor. "You, on the other hand, are a captive of Evil," cried the Guildmaster. He clapped his hands and the hall was filled with armed warriors. They moved individually in their files, and through their images the sunlight could be seen.

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"Yes," shouted the Guildmaster, his face close to Loren's, "they're nothing but illusions. Illusions, though, can kill. You yourself claim to be only an illusion, but I know you plan to kill me if I reject your spurious advice." The spectral Loren shrank back. The Guildmaster's spittle spotted Loren's face, and he wiped it away. The Guildmaster clapped his hands once again. The warriors disappeared. The hall was once again cool and musty, its muted colours dreaming in the soft sunlight that filtered through the stained-glass windows. "I know you," whispered the Guildmaster, "for what you are. I know that you are the spawn of Evil. Not the 'evil' that prohibits a person from doing one thing or another, but the Evil that burns children alive, or tortures men to death, or watches with a smile as widows starve." "B -- but I'm Loren, your friend from long ago." "No, you're not. Loren, forgive all his minor failings, had a soul . . . and you have none. You're nothing more than a helghast. Your mission is obvious -- you've even stated it yourself: to unite the Left Hand magic of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star with the Right Hand foulness of the Nadziranim, so that your vile master can complete the conquest of Magnamund. Not just of Magnamund, but of the whole of Aon." The two of them froze. The Guildmaster pointed his index finger at the helghast. He shaped a Left Hand thought. He was a merciful man, and disliked slaying even the vilest spawn of Helgedad. The helghast that had adopted the form of the dead Loren melted and shrank. The grey hair on its head spread all over its body, and its clothing vanished into wisps of pale steam that soon dissipated in the hall's dry air. Its head grew larger in relation to its shrinking body, and the pupils of its eyes were no longer round but slitted. Its grey-furred ears sprang erect, and it now had a tail which swished from side to side restlessly. Its arms became forefeet, the fingers transforming into sheathed claws. It was a kitten, and it jumped down from the chair. The Guildmaster had banished Evil from this helghast and given it a mind, and so the spawn-creature approached Grey One with interest. The two of them sniffed at each other, fought a brief and squealing battle, and then curled up on the floor to enjoy the warmth of a bright sunbeam. Soon they were motionless except for the slow undulations of their chests as they breathed and the occasional flutter of a tail.

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The Guildmaster could no longer tell which kitten was which. He probed mentally at each of them, individually, but both of their minds reflected nothing but catlike thoughts. He decided to continue his planning in his study and walked quickly to one of the hall's doors. As he opened it, he looked back at the two dozing kittens. Innocence, he thought, is Ishir's greatest gift. If only she had given it to more of us.

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2 Rescues 1 The soporific effect of the sleeptooth wore off swiftly: from the position of the sun in the sky Lone Wolf reckoned that he had been unconscious for no more than half an hour. His head felt as if it were filled with sponge, and his tongue was a swollen stranger invading his mouth. Everything he looked at seemed to have an aura of shifting iridescent colours, as if it had been badly painted onto a backdrop. He gulped, and the taste in his mouth was sour. Still, he had enough energy left in him to continue. Squinting once again at the sun, he established that his southeasterly course should continue directly away from the bank of sleeptooth. At first he could only crawl, the young green ferns and other lowlying foliage tickling his nose as he moved: first the left arm, then the left knee, then the right hand, clutching his axe, now the right knee, and now the left hand again, his scabbarded sword dragging between his legs . . . Progress was painfully slow. There were thorny ground-creepers, he discovered, which blended in perfectly with the other vegetation. His knees and his hands were soon covered with minor but irritating scratches, to add to those which he had incurred while slithering through the sleeptooth. At last he was beginning to see things properly -- that uncanny falsely coloured aura was disappearing. However, his head still throbbed and the whole of his body felt as if it had been beaten by an iron bar wrapped in velvet. He rocked back onto his heels and experimented with standing up. It was as difficult as learning some advanced acrobatic manoeuvre, but at last he managed it. He clutched the trunk of a young sapling and swayed from side to side; disconcertingly, the sapling swayed with him. Still, at least he was vertical. If he could stagger from one tree-trunk to the next he would be able to make better time than if he just carried on crawling. He was beginning to be able to think again, and with that came greater awareness of his surroundings. His senses had been functioning all the while, but somehow his mind had been insulated from them. It had been like overhearing a quiet conversation, able to hear the sounds and to know that they were speech, but unable to make out the words. His renewed contact

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with the evidence of his senses was a mixed blessing, however: although the fact that he could tell from the faintness of their aerial cacklings the good news that he had left behind the main area where the kraan were congregating, he could also feel the seemingly malevolent stinging of all the scratches and prickings his skin had suffered both in the sleeptooth and since. He had limited abilities to push back this hurt, and the effort of using them almost made him collapse. He resolved that it would be better simply to endure the pain. He glanced down at himself. It was like looking down from a dizzying height. His green clothing was covered in brown stains gathered from the forest floor. His hands were bleeding, and his tattered tunic was stained with blood and giak ichor. From the rags of his leggings more blood slowly seeped. At some point, without realizing it or feeling any soreness, he had slashed his right calf with the blade of his axe. Quite how he had managed to keep clinging onto the weapon he had no idea; it had involved no deliberate decision on his part. He assumed that it must simply be that some of his training in weapons had sunk deeper than he and his tutors had assumed, so that it was now almost instinctual: the axe had become an extension of his body. He lurched towards the next tree-trunk and fell face-first onto its crumpled silverish bark. The trees here were deciduous, and so the light had a somewhat paler green tinge than earlier, when he had been among conifers. He thanked Ishir and Kai for the mercy: the harsh trunk of a conifer would have ripped open countless more gashes in his face. He was consumed by thirst. As he stumbled from trunk to trunk, his mind conjured up vivid images of sparkling fountains, thundering waterfalls, burbling streams, gentle sweet rain . . . At first he thought it was only an aural hallucination when he heard the sound of splashing water. He laughed biliously at himself for his folly in believing what his ears seemed to be telling him. But the sound wouldn't go away. And, as he staggered on, it grew louder. In spite of what he regarded as his better judgement, he began to move more quickly, collecting further bruises and cuts from the trees as he collapsed against each of them in turn. The noise of the running water came closer and closer, and finally he found a stream. Its course was strewn with rounded, lichen-covered rocks and he could make out the flitting forms of small fishes. He toppled forward onto its mossy banks and pushed his face into its clear coolness, drinking deeply and feeling its chill drive the fogginess from his mind. It was all he could do not to relax and decide to leave his head there forever: had it not

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been for a great effort of will on his part, he would have drowned. He pulled out his face and shook his head like a dog. Diamond droplets of water flew in all directions. More carefully now, he cupped some water to his lips, and sipped gratefully. At once his gorge rose, but he had the presence of mind to turn away so as not to foul the water. After a few agonizing moments he was able to drink once more. Once he had taken his fill, he sat up and looked around him. For the first time in what seemed like a lifetime he felt fully alive. The cuts and scratches over much of his body added themselves each with all the others to fill him with agony, but he didn't mind that: with some of his strength regained, he possessed the ability to mute the pain to a reasonably tolerable level. In fact -- and he hardly liked to admit it to himself -- his primary emotion at the moment was not too far away from cheerfulness. Had it not been for the knowledge that all of his friends and tutors had been slaughtered, and that the spawn of the Darklord Zagarna were combing the forest for him . . . Stop that! That sort of thinking is dangerous! He slapped his head free of muzziness. Now that he'd recovered from the last traces of the sleeptooth's poison, it was his duty to push ahead towards Holmgard with all the speed he could muster. If I start letting myself think about all the excuses for not doing so I'll be stuck in this blasted forest for the rest of my life -- which is not likely to be too long, with the kraan still out hunting . . . He allowed himself a few final seconds to appreciate the colours and sounds around him -- the hoverfly with its striped yellow-and-black body, investigating a flower of such a pale violet that the light shone through it; the ripples of water chattering to each other as they hurried over the pebbles of the stream-bed; the short-lived circle as a minnow came to the surface to catch a fly. Then he pulled himself to his feet and vaulted clumsily over the stream. On its other side there beckoned a further expanse of forest, and he accepted its protection gratefully. He plodded on steadily, forcing himself not to hurry too much, trying to keep to a straight line. On occasion he used his sword or his axe to hack his way through the dense foliage, but for most of the time he had no need of either. At first he didn't notice that there was a new smell amid the riot of forest odours filling his nostrils. Even when it grew stronger and more obvious, it took him some while to identify it. He stopped and moved his

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head around, probing the air with his nose. It was smoke -- woodsmoke. Its source seemed to be somewhere off to his left. Had the invaders set fire to the forest in order to flush out survivors such as himself and Banedon? He hesitated. No, this wasn't the smell of green wood burning. Perhaps they were using collected dried wood to get the blaze going? He was in two minds. His overriding need was to press on to Holmgard. Yet, if the forces of Darkness were setting the forest ablaze, surely it was his obligation as a Kai to try to stop them? Abruptly he decided. For a moment he looked ruefully in the direction in which he'd been heading, and then he headed off towards the north. The going was easy. As he jogged smoothly through dead ferns and bracken, he cursed the fact that he hadn't discovered a route like this before. Insects hummed and swirled around him. Soon he could hear the crackling of flames. There was another sound, too: the gibbering clatter of giak voices. It was difficult to tell, but from the speed with which they were talking it seemed they were excited about something. He moved more carefully now. The enemy was very close. There were shrubs ahead, and he raced towards their cover, making as little noise as possible. His axe felt comforting in his hand. The sounds seemed to be coming from directly behind the bushes where he hid. He wondered if he really wanted to know what was going on. There was still the opportunity to turn and go back. Then he heard a man moan, and that decided him. He forced his body to move with caution and complete precision. Putting his axe down on the ground beside him, he stretched his fingers into the twigs of the shrubs and carefully moved his hands forward, making a channel through which he could see. It was painstaking work -- rather like weaving in reverse. At last his hands were pushing aside the final leaves. What he saw horrified him. 2 Far away and far above, his huge legs clamped tight astride an imperial zlanbeast, the Darklord Zagarna was surveying the scene of devastation and

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damnation with shouts of glee. Flying near to him on kraan were several of his drakkarim courtiers; they too were whooping with excitement each time a new flame started, or when fleeing families of peasants were caught and hacked to pieces by pursuing giaks. Some of the drakkarim were still clad in the disguises they had worn during the massacre of the Kai and the destruction of the Monastery. Their racket almost drowned the frenzied cacklings of the beasts they rode. Zagarna's shouts, by contrast, were almost inaudible. At best his voice was no more than a quiet bubbling: many of his servants had died because they had not realized that he was speaking. Here in Sommerlund, his head encased in a glass shield to protect him from air that was poison to him, next to nothing could be heard of his yelling. Sometimes the Darklord envied his spawn. Giaks, kraan -- all the rest of them -- were able to breathe comfortably both in the noxious artificial atmosphere of the Darklands and in the natural air of the rest of Magnamund. Even the drakkarim had long ago been given the ability to breathe either atmosphere. By contrast he, Zagarna, had to bring the gases of the Darklands with him in containers strapped to the sides of his zlanbeast; others of his flying spawn bore replenishments for him. It seemed strange that his Nadziranim were unable to extend the same facility to him, their master, as they were to the drakkarim. Were they, perhaps, holding out on him? Might it be that they knew how to help him but were covertly keeping the information to themselves, for reasons which he could not understand? It was always difficult to comprehend the motives of the Nadziranim. He resolved that later he would have a few of them tortured to find out if they were betraying him . . . although first of all he would have to work out how to torture Nadziranim, seeing as they had no corporeal form in this plane of reality. For the moment he contented himself with screams of bloodlust that were virtually silent. His green saliva whipped the inside of his glass shield, so that at times he could barely see through it. His huge, blue reptilian form convulsed with his joy: at last, at last, thanks to the workings of Naar, he had brought Sommerlund to its knees. The vast sharp teeth in his crocodilian mouth clacked together, as did those of the second mouth in his abdomen. The saliva from this second mouth spattered onto the scaly back of the imperial zlanbeast Zagarna was riding. In one of his few genuinely lucid moments the Darklord wondered where Vonotar was. He longed to cry "Bring me my wizard!" but there was no way of doing so.

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Then he remembered that their minds were indissolubly linked. He concentrated on a single thought: I need you with me now, Vonotar. 3 Vonotar heard the call, and he had no choice but to obey. His brain and the Darklord's were now in effect two parts of a single whole. Indeed, it wasn't so much that he was obeying the summons as that he suddenly wished to be with Zagarna. He realized that the impulse had not been born of his own mind, but the fact didn't trouble him. Idly, as he swooped down through the clutching clouds, he wondered what would have happened had he responded by wishing that Zagarna would fly up to meet him. Could zlanbeast survive in the rarefied air of the high altitudes where Vonotar had been resting? He thought probably so. As far as he could work out, zlanbeast could survive virtually anything. The notion flitted swiftly through his mind and was gone. In a matter of minutes he was moving alongside the Darklord, having appropriated a riderless kraan. You've changed, Vonotar, thought Zagarna. At first I couldn't recognize you. It's the custom of people to change as time goes on, thought the wizard with affected casualness. He shielded as much of his bitterness as possible from the Darklord, but he could tell from a jerk of Zagarna's shoulders that he hadn't been totally successful. You're concealing something from me! Our minds are linked. How could I hide anything from you? Only too easily, I suspect, thought Zagarna, quite accurately. He knew that he was capable of guarding his own thoughts from the wizard. At this very moment he was speculating as to whether it would be a good idea to have Vonotar killed -- and, indeed, whether it would be possible. Zagarna was uncomfortable with the idea that there should be anyone else around who was potentially as powerful as himself. We must trust each other, Zagarna. The two of us together are much more powerful than the two of us separately. True, agreed the Darklord. Besides, the wizard might still have his uses. I didn't see you at the Monastery, my friend, he continued. He shook the reins of his zlanbeast and the raking claws on his elbows glinted wickedly in the sunlight.

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I was otherwise occupied, fighting for our cause in a way in which only I can. And what way is that? Darklord, you may not have sensed it yet, but there is a presence near here of immense spiritual power. I've never come across anything like it. She -- it seems to be female -- is not allied to our cause. In fact, she actively opposes us. While you were extirpating the Kai, I was engaged in a mental battle with her. I was unable to defeat her, but I held her full wrath back from the battle. Had I not been able to do so, matters might well have gone the other way. Vonotar had decided that it would be politic to launder the truth just a little. Alyss had decidedly had the better of their encounter and, had it not been for his swift action to kill that boy, might have succeeded in her intention. But it would be as well not to trouble the Darklord with such mundane details. He suspected that Zagarna was wondering whether or not to try to kill him. On balance, he thought that the Darklord probably was. An admission of weakness at this stage would be a bad ploy -- indeed, by contrast, a display of strength was called for. Especially since his outward form, aged and crooked, now seemed so feeble. His eyes flickered. During his encounter with Alyss they had been hard crystals of diamantine ice. Now, once more, they were hotly glowing orange-red flames. Zagarna, I want you to watch something. Go ahead, wizard. Show me what new frippery trick you have invented. Vonotar swung his right arm in a circle and the air he encompassed became a large lens, several feet in diameter. But it was like no lens the Darklord had ever encountered before, because it did more than merely magnify: through it he could see tiny scuttling beings in a far part of Magnamund. The port of Hikas, Zagarna, Vonotar explained. Many hundreds of miles from here, in the Magiocracy of Dessi. Zagarna could make out porters staggering beneath the weight of the goods they were loading and unloading from cargo vessels. He could see slavedrivers wielding their whips viciously across the backs of hapless slaves -- men, women and children of all cultures and colours. There was a public execution in progress but few people stopped to watch: executions were commonplace here. Even Zagarna barely glanced at it: the ritual mutilations were tame stuff compared with his own preferences. Life was

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cheap in Hikas. A slave tottering across a gangplank fell into the water and was crushed between the dock and the side of the ship; the slavedriver cursed the slave's corpse, as it floated away, for having carelessly lost a valuable item of cargo. Dogs and children competed all over the wharves for scraps of food; their ribs showed starkly through their taut chests. One little boy, no more than five years old, made the foolish mistake of stepping in the path of a local grandee and was instantly cut to ribbons by the potentate's guards. His body was tossed into the water -- a matter of clearing litter. Vonotar waved his arm yet again, and Zagarna felt himself falling down into a pit. Colours and crazy patterns raced past him as he flailed. Fear was an emotion to which he was unaccustomed, and so it struck him particularly forcefully. He had never known a childhood: had he done so, he would have recognized that he was experiencing a child's primitive terror at the knowledge that they have no control over the circumstances around them. The Darklord, who had always regarded himself as almost omnipotent, felt a shrill childish squall trying to erupt from his leathery lips. You betray me, wizard! There is no need for fear, Zagarna, came Vonotar's ice-cold thought. I told you we must trust each other. Moments later they were standing on the quayside, the huge figure of the Darklord towering over Vonotar's hunched form. There was something very different about the way he was experiencing things, the Darklord's muddled brain realized. And then he had it: after having been confined inside his shield of glass for so many hours, now -- at last -- he could hear and smell again. The rank and rotting odours of the port came at him from every side. The shouts of the slavedrivers and the children and the screams of the slaves mingled with the growling and yapping of the starving mongrels. Women flaunted themselves on every corner, and he could hear their harsh calls of encouragement. The heat was oppressive -- as if the sun were physically hitting him. Yet no one reacted in the slightest to his presence. We're not entirely here, you know, said Vonotar's voice inside his mind. Most of what we are is still back in Sommerlund. But just enough of both of us is here for us to experience everything that is the reality of Hikas. It's not an illusion, I promise you. Illustrating his point, the magician kicked one of the starving curs, and it hobbled away, looking offended by the actions of a fate which it could not understand. Zagarna, in your struggle for physical power you've overlooked the

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potency of magical power. As I was remarking to you, somehow the Sommlending have enlisted to their aid an entity of considerable magical ability. Who or what this entity is I don't yet know, but sooner or later I'll find out, and when I do I'll be able to defeat her. Trust me for that. I brought you here to show you what some of the powers of my magic can do . . . as well as to give you a glimpse of a land that will some day be ours. Darklord, we must remain allies if we're to be able to conquer all of Magnamund and thus all of Aon. I know that you've been wondering whether or not to kill me. I don't think you could, because my magic, thanks to the fusion of my own Left Hand training by the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star with the lore I learnt from your Nadziranim, is stronger than anything your cohorts might direct towards me. But you might injure me, or in some other way seriously discommode me. That would be foolish. If I'm to destroy this entity, Alyss, then I must retain all of my strengths. I must be prepared for her at every moment. It is essential that I be so, or else our plans of conquest are doomed. The Darklord accepted Vonotar's arguments, although they tasted foul to his mouths. He was mentally silent for some while. Finally, having digested these unpalatable ideas, he thought in an off-hand way: They're not beating those slaves hard enough, you know. Vonotar took this as agreement, and instantly they were tumbling and turning vertiginously back through the redly patterned tunnel of their fused minds. This time Zagarna was able to control his terror -- now that he knew what was happening the experience became one of enjoyable interest. Still, he was gasping inside his glass helmet when he found himself back astride his zlanbeast, which certainly hadn't noticed his absence. Vonotar was riding nonchalantly nearby. The smoke from the many fires beneath shrouded them. A small exhibition, Darklord. A very impressive exhibition, wizard. But why do you think I was planning to kill you? Our minds are linked, Zagarna. Both of us have private areas of our minds which we hope to conceal from each other, but the concealment is only partial, at best. As I keep telling you, we must trust each other. If not, all is lost. The Darklord nodded. Magic made his skin itch. He preferred simple slaughter. Yet clearly the magician could aid his cause in ways he could not as yet comprehend. All right, Vonotar, he thought, you have my trust. We shall be allies in

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this war. Afterwards . . . Afterwards, thought the wizard, things may be different -- who knows? 4 Meanwhile, in Hikas, a cur which had been kicked by a spectre was scratching industriously under its chin. The fleas were very bad this year -and there might not be a next. It was tiresome being a mongrel stray, constantly scavenging for food that was never quite enough. The dog shifted its attentions to the sensitive region behind its right ear, and ecstasy ensued. At moments like this it was so good to be alive. Dimly it remembered the pain it had experienced, and its ribs still throbbed, but it had no real memory of the cause. A slave had dropped dead in her tracks, her body a mass of lacerations. The driver had kicked the corpse aside impatiently, anxious to get his cargo loaded as soon as possible. The cur gave up its scratching. It was rare for rich food on this scale to be available. Its ears pricked up in anticipation. Tongue slicking from side to side, bruises forgotten, the dog ran to join the roiling pack that surrounded the slave's body. 5 Lone Wolf's first reaction to the scene which confronted him had been one of revulsion. His second was a surge of paradoxical relief. The forces of Darkness were not attempting to set fire to the forest. In a fairly obscure way, he realized, he would have mourned the deaths of all the proud trees almost as much as those of the survivors flushed out into the open by the flames. Yet the sight before him was a sickening one. A patrol of three giaks had captured a Border Ranger -- one of the bold Sommlending who policed the regions on the eastern side of the Durncrag Mountains. Clearly they had beaten him badly -- possibly they had tortured him for a while, because his uniform was badly cut and torn. His face was a mask of blood. The giaks had erected a wooden stake in the middle of the clearing, and around it they had heaped a bundle of brushwood and dead bracken which they had set ablaze. Even as Lone Wolf watched, the giaks slapped the Ranger back to consciousness and frogmarched him to the stake. Impervious to the heat themselves, they easily forced him through the

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hungry flames and rapidly tied his arms behind him, knotting the cords tightly around his wrists so that he was firmly secured to the stake. They retreated, and settled down to watch the entertainment. What offended Lone Wolf's sensibilities most about this spectacle of gratuitous cruelty was that the day was so beautiful. The sunlight slanted across the clearing, pointing up the reds and blues of the fresh spring flowers around its edge. Long grasses waved in the slight breeze, unperturbed by the savagery to which they were so close. Even the flames themselves were, in a way, like fiery gems strung on a lady's necklace. There was no need, on a day like this, for a man to be burnt alive. He crept to his right, staying as quiet as possible. The pulse at his temple was twitching. He was having some difficulty breathing steadily. So far today he had killed perhaps half a dozen giaks, but he knew that they were no mean foes. He had succeeded in driving off the band attacking Banedon, but they had been already demoralized by the loss of their leader. For the first time he wished he had insisted that the young magician come with him, inept wimp though Banedon was: Lone Wolf's chances of rescuing the Border Ranger would have been improved immeasurably had his own skill with weapons been supported by a magical assault. But there was no way he could change the past, now. He would have to attack on his own. With a scream he rounded the shrubs and charged straight at the giaks. He had the benefit of surprise. They were squatting, their green tongues licking their fleshless lips as they prepared to enjoy the Ranger's death agonies. He was halfway across the clearing before they realized he was there. The spawn sprang upright, each grasping at the hilt of its serrated sword. The one closest to him was slower than the rest. Lone Wolf swung his axe in a great arc, still screaming as he did so, and its head was swept from its body to tumble into the roaring flames. Sickly fascinated, he noticed that the head stayed alive for some seconds before the eyelids fluttered in death. His momentary pause almost cost him his life. A sword tore at the green cloth of his cape. He whirled about, and his axe struck one of the remaining giaks at the knee-joint. The creature gave a high-pitched cackling scream, and fell to the ground. Lone Wolf parried the other giak momentarily with the sharp tip of his axe, danced deftly aside, and shattered the skull of the fallen one with a single blow.

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His final opponent was the giak leader. It was armed with a sword but had also a morningstar -- a viciously spiked heavy metal ball attached by a chain to a stout wooden haft. The ball swished through the air and Lone Wolf jumped back; even the slightest delay in his reflex action would have given his opponent enough time to strike. An axe offers little competition to a morningstar. A single blow from the heavy spiked ball can shatter an axe handle. The yellow eyes of the giak looked straight into Lone Wolf's dark ones. Here, the creature was obviously thinking, was an easy kill. It pulled the morningstar behind its back, ready to deliver a swift and lethal whiplash blow. Lone Wolf dropped the axe, drew his dagger from his belt, and leapt straight towards the giak. He felt its fetid breath on his face, and the stench nearly stopped him in his tracks. Now that he was within the circle of the morningstar's sweep he was safe unless the giak could wrap the chain around his neck. He punched the creature on the nose with his free hand. Clearly this was the last thing that the giak had been expecting, because it staggered backwards, its decaying eyes wide in astonishment. Lone Wolf pursued it, wanting to keep close to it, only too aware that his proximity to it was the only thing that could save him from the lethal whirl of the morningstar. He stabbed at the giak's stomach with his dagger, and the creature screamed. Rather than pull the blade away, Lone Wolf wrenched upwards, opening much of the giak's torso. The giak dropped its morningstar and clutched its torn belly. Lone Wolf felt something close to pity for it as he grabbed his axe from the ground and brought it crashing down to sever the creature's head. He had no time to savour his victory, nor even to loathe himself for the slaughter. The flames around the moaning Border Ranger were clutching higher and higher into the air. Tripping over the corpse of one of the giaks, he stumbled through the smoke towards the pyre. It was difficult to see where he was going. He let the heat guide him. He used his axe like a shovel to scoop away the burning pieces of wood and bracken, clearing an area around him so that he could approach the Border Ranger. The man was in agony. Somehow he had survived the suffocating effect of the smoke and the torture of his burns. He was throwing his head from side to side, sometimes moaning, sometimes screaming, sometimes

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cursing in a low voice that did not seem to be his own. It took Lone Wolf only a second's work with his dagger to chop through the Ranger's bonds. He hoisted the full weight of the man's collapsing body onto his shoulders and carried him away from the fire. Floating embers sparkled in the smoke, stinging him whenever they landed on his bare flesh. Coughing and wheezing, he stumbled as far as he could before falling to the ground, taking care to shield the Ranger from the impact as much as possible. The man was delirious from the pain and from the sapping effect of his injuries. He lay on his back, spittle bubbling from his mouth, his eyes closed, his head jerking fitfully. He was speaking, but Lone Wolf couldn't understand any of the words. It seemed unlikely the Ranger would live very long. Lone Wolf remembered some of the lore which Storm Hawk had taught him concerning the curative powers of various wild plants. Darting as swiftly as possible around the edges of the clearing, he gathered a collection of those he recognized and, hoping he had the combinations right, chewed them until he had half a dozen small cakes of moist green mush. He used these to sponge the Ranger's body, much as if he were bathing him. He wasn't sure that his nursing was doing any good. True, the Ranger was no longer jerking and twitching so much, but for all Lone Wolf knew that might simply mean that he was more closely approaching the final portals of death. At least these herbs should be reducing the pain, if nothing else . . . unless he'd been mistaken in his identification. By a conscious effort of will he discarded this possibility from his mind. He had absorbed enough guilt, these last few days, without adding to it: had it not been for his action the Ranger would even now be dying the most excruciating of deaths. Even if the man's life were indeed to be lost, he, Lone Wolf, had at least spared him those agonies. The Ranger recovered consciousness, briefly. He groped around, his eyes gaping, as if he were trying to find a weapon. Failing in this, he stared Lone Wolf straight in the eyes. "Giak scum!" he said, and spat. Lone Wolf recoiled as the spit hit him between the eyes, and controlled his natural impulse to hit the man. People are permitted to act foully when they're close to death. Obviously the Ranger was hallucinating. Lone Wolf had no illusions that he was especially good-looking, but . . . The trouble was, what was he going to do with this man? He could hardly wait around until, if ever, the Ranger was fit to travel: his priority was to reach Holmgard. Neither did he feel there was any possibility of him

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escaping Zagarna's predators for long if he tried to carry the limp form over his shoulders. He looked at his own fingers, as if their lines and coils would advise him. They were eloquently silent. In the end, he dragged the Ranger to the comfortable bed afforded by the spreading roots of a giant oak, and there he settled him as best he could. He looked around for some vessel which he could fill with water and leave by the Ranger's side, but there was nothing. One of the giaks had been bearing a pannier, but Lone Wolf took a single sniff at it and realized he would never be able to wash it clean of the revolting substance which it contained. He felt incredibly inadequate. All of the Kai doctrines which had been inculcated into him stressed that he should stay here and nurse this man back to health over the next few days or weeks. Yet obviously he couldn't do that. "I'm sorry, my friend," he said to the now motionless form of the Ranger. "I've done all that I can do. I've got to leave you to whatever mercy Ishir and Kai decree." He found himself ready to launch into a long speech, and bit it back. "I hope you live," he mumbled somewhat sheepishly, and then he turned back into the forest. 6 Banedon, by contrast, was living a charmed life. From time to time he had been assailed by giaks, kraan and others of Zagarna's forces, but he had repelled them with astonishing ease. Part of him wanted to believe that this was because his mind had finally resurrected those teachings of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star which he had until a few days ago allowed to wash over his consciousness without in any way disturbing it; most of him was honest enough to recognize that Alyss was working through him. He was having no difficulty at all in shaping Left Hand thoughts which caused kraan and their riders to steeple down from the sky, shrieking in the knowledge of their imminent deaths. He had a faint suspicion that some of the spells that he was casting had more to do with the Right Hand, Nadziranim branch of magic than with anything he had been taught, but at this moment he couldn't care less. It gave him great joy each time he felled one of Zagarna's spawn. A snap of the fingers here, a wink of the eyelashes there, and finally -hey presto! -- a clap of the hands to conjure up a thunderbolt.

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All very fine, until Banedon discovered that it wasn't.

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3 Tunnelling 1 The skies had clouded over about two hours ago, making it impossible for Lone Wolf to operate his rudimentary navigation system. The area of forest through which he was trekking was fairly featureless. For all he knew he could be travelling in totally the wrong direction, or even going round in circles. To test this latter possibility he blazed marks on the trunks of several trees so that he'd be able to identify them if indeed he was simply retracing his steps over and over. He was reassured, after half an hour or so, not to have come across them again. Still, the truth was that he had no notion whatsoever of where he was heading. He could hear nothing of the searchers now -- except occasionally, across the treetops, the shriek of a kraan -- so he was fairly certain he was in a part of the forest through which Zagarna's dragnet had yet to run. Nevertheless, he warned himself against complacency: it could well be that even now he was heading back towards enemy lines. Although the day was no longer bright, the temperature was if anything hotter. Lone Wolf smelled the possibility of thunder in the air. Perhaps Ishir and Kai were sending a rainstorm to quell some of the flames that symbolized Zagarna's conquest. He made a silent prayer to that effect. He came at length to a new part of the forest, where the vegetation was dominated by bizarre fungi. Among the grasses, shrubs and trees were curious fungal forms, some as tall as a young tree, others carpeting the ground. The larger ones were delicately coloured in pastel pinks, blues and greys; beneath their translucent skins he could see what looked like traceries of veins and arteries. Their stalks were thick and sturdy-looking, but they were topped by fragile wing-like caps which flapped lazily in the light breeze. Lone Wolf avoided any contact with these huge mushrooms, terrified of the poisons their surfaces might excrete. However, there was little he could do to avoid the smaller ones beneath his feet, and he squelched along unhappily. The squashed flesh, surprisingly, released a pleasant odour midway between unripe apples and the sap of a broken green twig. He savoured the smell, but as soon as he left the belt of fungi behind he sought out the nearest stream and soaked his boots in the water until he was certain all traces of the mashed flesh had gone.

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Some while later he was scrabbling down a rocky slope when he saw a black rectangular shape at the base of the facing hillside. At first it was difficult to make out what it was because it was largely obscured by knots of gnarled tree-roots. As he made his way cautiously towards it, however, he was able to see it better. It was the dark, gaping entrance to a tunnel. There must have been mine workings here years ago -- perhaps even centuries ago -- and this was one of the abandoned shafts. He guessed the entrance to be perhaps seven feet high and a little over ten feet across. The brick-red stone masonry surrounding it was crumbling in places, but was essentially sound. Lone Wolf came close up to the opening and examined it with interest. He kicked aside a broken piece of brick and ran his fingers along the rough walls. It was possible, if this place was safe, that it might serve as a temporary refuge for him. After all the trials of the day he was almost sick from fatigue. He had planned to force himself onwards for a few hours yet but, now that he had found this place of concealment, would it not be sensible to try to snatch a few hours' sleep? He breathed deeply, gazing back at the dappled forest from which he'd come. The prospect of a rest was almost irresistible. It might even be, he told himself persuasively, that he could make better progress at night than during the day, because he would have to be less careful about venturing across open spaces. Storm Hawk had once told him that some of Zagarna's spawn were capable of seeing in the dark, but presumably the lack of light would at least to a certain extent inhibit their vision. The moon would still be nearly full tonight, giving him some light -- assuming, that is, the clouds dissipated. He was thinking along these lines when a puff of air touched his cheek. It smelt of dampness and age, and it definitely came from inside the tunnel. He waited a few moments longer, and there was another faint, shortlived breeze. Had the tunnel become the lair of some vast subterranean monster? Was it even now advancing towards him? Was the air on his face its mighty breathing? He curbed the wild excesses of his imaginings. What the breeze was telling him was something much more mundane: that the tunnel did not descend to a dead end deep within the ground. No, it must emerge somewhere -- presumably on the far side of the hill. Exhaustion was, he knew, making him indecisive. With a struggle, he

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forced himself to concentrate. He looked at the hillside above him. The slope was extremely steep, and much of it was loose scree. From here, close beneath, he couldn't see the summit, but his instincts told him that it was a long way above. So far he had preferred to go around than over hills, in order to reduce the time he was exposed to the cruel gaze of the kraan above, but the surrounding forest was unusually thick and tangled around here; moreover, he could see among the trees more of the tall, coolly coloured fungi. His heart quailed at the thought of fighting his way through many miles of such difficult terrain. By contrast, if this tunnel went straight through the hill -- and his wishes blandished his intellect into agreeing that this was the only possibility -- he could save himself several hours' hard travelling. On the other hand, working blindly through the darkness wasn't the most delectable of scenarios -- and it would slow him down, too. He didn't like to admit to himself that he was a little frightened of the dark, but he forced himself to: the courage of the Kai is not to suppress fears but to acknowledge them and then either to conquer them or to put them to good use. It struck Lone Wolf that he could indeed exploit his own fear in this instance: his fatigue and sleepiness had eased now that the adrenaline was rushing through his veins. He could travel as swiftly as practicable through the tunnel and then, perhaps, grab some sleep close to its other end before continuing on his way. There was one further thing to think about. If he hung around here much longer he was going to end up taking none of the options open to him. The steepness of the hillside, the solid wall of twisted shrubbery and creepers, the pitch-black maw of the tunnel -- all three were equally unprepossessing. Acting on sudden impulse, he chose the tunnel. Blindly, running his fingers along the walls, he shuffled deeper and deeper into the muffling darkness. Blindly . . . 2 The Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star was scrying. Tapestries hung across the windows of his dusty study, cutting out most of the grey daylight. The air was cool and motionless. The silence was almost complete; those few sounds that penetrated the muffled windows and the

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great oak door of the study were muted and seemed to come from the far, far distance. The Guildmaster heard nothing of them, for he was deeply engaged in concentration. His fingers were knotted through his grey beard, his chewed old lips were sucked in between his teeth, and the lines around his eyes were creased into a complex criss-cross of furrows. Those eyes themselves saw nothing except the brightly moving colours displayed in a pageant on the surface of the bowl of water he had placed on his desk before him. He leant on his elbows, absolutely motionless, fixed into such a rigidity that it seemed almost as if he and his onyx desk were both parts of a single solid object. The colours from the water flickered across his face. Vonotar, he thought. Vonotar, where are you now? Capriciously, the display of scenes before him showed nothing of the traitor. The Guildmaster saw peasants seized from their homes and boiled alive by gloatingly laughing giaks; he saw strong men and women wielding two-handed swords, stabbing and hacking at a rain of kraan before falling to the spawn's superior numbers; he saw a baby yelling in its attic bedroom, screaming for food and comfort, unknowing that as it had slept its entire family had been ruthlessly destroyed by the swiftly moving army of Zagarna; he saw giaks foully feasting on human remains; he saw sights that would have rent his mind loose from its hinges had it not been that he had deliberately locked away all his emotions in order to concentrate more fully. And then, to his astonishment, he saw Banedon, whom all day he had assumed -- full of guilt for having sent the boy on such a deadly mission -must have perished in the earliest hours of the war. The Guildmaster forced the water's reflected pictures to stay with Banedon. The youth was sitting in a glade, leaning against a tree, quite casually, as if weren't surrounded by untold thousands of Zagarna's vile killing beasts. The Guildmaster noticed immediately that Banedon had turned his robe inside-out for better camouflage, but the youth was still a painfully obvious figure. Why he hadn't yet been carried off by a kraan or slaughtered by a marauding giak patrol was an utter mystery. But it didn't seem to worry Banedon. He was holding a piece of cloth between his fingers, and looking at it with total fascination . . . The Guildmaster had never heard of Alyss, and certainly could not know that Banedon had made her acquaintance a couple of days earlier, at the outset of his thwarted quest from Toran to the Monastery to warn the Kai of Vonotar's deception. Nor did the Guildmaster know that she had taken

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Banedon's handkerchief and, using a small piece of the sky and myriad threads woven from wildflowers, had with her agile fingertips embroidered him a tapestry as a gift. The picture she had sewn showed a rustic scene, with plump peasants dancing and singing, drinking and playing jokes. And the people and animals in the picture moved. One of them had even spoken to Banedon. Alyss had told him to keep the tapestry, because one day the peasants might give him good advice. Now he was chattering with the peasants, wondering if today was the day they would be able to help him. "I'm not sure," said their spokesman, a stocky man with a fat red face, wearing a ruddy brown tunic and a lop-sided beret. "It's difficult for us to tell, in here, you know. We can't see much of your world, you know. Tell you the truth, friend, all we can see right now is your face, you know. Oh, and, you know, a bit of trees and sky behind you." "Would it help if I sort of held you up and showed you a panorama?" "No. Sorry, Banderdom. Maybe Alyss didn't tell you. We're only here, you know, when you're looking at us. When you're not looking at us we're, like, just a picture made in threads. A pretty picture, mind you. 'Specially Bec here. You know." He nudged an equally rotund, red-faced woman, whom Banedon correctly guessed to be the man's wife. She giggled wheezily and slopped some cider from her mug. "Tell you what, chum," said the spokesman, "there's an easier way, you know." The Guildmaster watched, fascinated, through Banedon's eyes. This was a spellcasting undreamt-of by the Left Hand magic of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Could it be that this person -- Alyss -- was a sorceress of the Nadziranim? Yet it didn't seem to him like Nadziranim magic: Right Hand magic could be subtly seductive, he knew, but the rustic solidity of the peasants in the scene was a far cry from the Nadziranim style he had learnt to recognize. "What easier way?" Banedon asked. "Well, you could just, like, fall asleep, for example. You know how to do that, don't you, Danebon?" "Er . . . well . . . I'm not really all that tired right now." "Magic must be, you know, in a pretty shambolic state out there," muttered the spokesman to Bec, just loud enough for both Banedon and the Guildmaster to hear. "I remember when even the worst-trained young acolyte could knock himself flat just by, like, snapping his fingers."

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Banedon, you stupid boy, thought the Guildmaster, you'd have known how to shape the thought to make yourself fall asleep instantly if only you'd paid a little more attention in your classes rather than . . . er . . . falling asleep the whole time. "Or her fingers, Gruttle," said Bec, teasingly. She elbowed her husband forcefully in the solar plexus and he laughed uproariously. "Some woman, my wife," he explained to Banedon, who had been watching the interchange with ascetic distaste. Banedon didn't like to think of himself as a snob, but these rustics, with their coarse ways, were surely rather unlikely allies. Still, Alyss had told him that they were his friends, and for reasons which he couldn't really understand he trusted Alyss entirely. "Oh, well," said Gruttle wearily. "If you want a job doing, it's best to do it yourself, like. Here's a little trick that Alyss taught me when she last, you know, put me into one of her tapestries. That was for . . . what was his name, love?" "Ulnar, I think it was," said Bec, after the latest swig of cider had condescended to drain down her ample throat. "Some King of the Sommlending. Handsome fellow. Handsomer than this Bannerling. No offence meant," she added, staring straight at Banedon and smirking. "Hush, woman. You keep your eyes to, you know, yourself. Anyway, rest yourself against a tree, Bonedan -- oh, I see you already are -- and look at me for a moment." Gruttle twitched his fingers as if wondering where his jug of cider had gone, and Banedon was instantly plunged into deep sleep. His eyelids had barely closed when he was dreaming. The Guildmaster, who had been watching through Banedon's sight, did not have time to retreat. The flickering of Gruttle's fingers drew him, too, into sleep and into Banedon's dream. He felt reality shimmer, and then he was in a world of brilliant colours and sour animal aromas. He was lying face-down in the dust, the bitter taste of bile in his mouth, incapable of moving. He was conscious of the fact that he was still seated in his study, yet the real truth of the matter was that he was here, a lush, his brain heavy, sprawled on the ground. A brown pig was snuffling near his face, looking for dropped scraps of food. Never before had he regarded brown as a bright colour, yet now the beast's flanks were dazzling his eyes. Banedon found himself dreaming that he was sitting at one of the table-benches, a mugful of belly-rottingly potent cider in his fist. He smelled the sticky sweetness of the liquid in the heat of the staring sun. He heard the strained sounds of an antique accordion stumblingly rendering dance tunes,

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its keys tormented in a friendly fashion by a player whose zeal was greater than his expertise. On the other side of the table-bench sat a man who was leaning forward, head nestling on his arms, snoring loudly. Whoops of glee and merriment came from the dancing couples. The naked sunlight speared his eyes. The colours were unnaturally stark and simple: all the reds were simply reds, all the blues a single blue, all the yellows the yellow of the sun ... (He moaned in his sleep, and would have been seized by a kraan had not Alyss carefully turned the beast's head through a half-circle, so that it confusedly found itself flying right-way-up yet looking at the sky. Its memory was short, and soon it accepted that this was the way things had always been. It was both perplexed and deeply offended when its fellows descended upon this freak and began to devour it.) "Drink up, young man," said Gruttle, crashing down on the bench beside him. "You are a young man, I suppose?" "Of course! What do you . . .?" "No offence, like, meant!" Gruttle held up a hand by way of apology. "It's just that what with your long hair and your, you know . . ." Bec punched her husband so hard around the ear that he collapsed from his seat and lay sprawled in the dusty street, unconscious. Banedon was newly appalled. He had heard that such things went on in some of the seedier taverns of Toran, but he had never quite believed the stories. Bec sat down opposite him. Her face was florid, leering like the grimace of a cheap Ragadornian doll, but her eyes had become suddenly intense. Her words lost all the broad rustic buffoonery which had earlier characterized them; as she spoke to him she was urgent and clipped. "Magician," she said, "you're living in an illusion all the time you're here." "I know that." He was perfectly aware of the fact that this was a dream. "But there are illusions even inside illusions." Her green eyes shone at him. "All around you you see plain, simple folk enjoying boisterous games and rough cider, but that's only the surface of it." Banedon blinked. He could not only see the scene of carousal; all of his senses were almost overwhelmed by it. "The picture you've looked at in the tapestry and the picture you're living in in your dream are as illusory as the world in which you normally exist," Bec hissed at him.

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"But Magnamund isn't a figment of my imagination!" Banedon exclaimed. "There are real people out there" -- he gestured vaguely at the sky -- "and they're dying! The Darklord isn't just a dream -- he's a hideous reality! His minions are slaughtering all the good people of Magnamund. I . . . I came close to being killed myself!" The hubbub of roistering dancers almost drowned his voice, but it was clear that Bec had heard every word. "To the gods," she said, "the whole of Aon is just as much an illusion as the pretty tapestry Alyss wove for you is to you. The gods can admire you, encourage you, be on your side, even love you -- but if you die they will feel no pain. You're just a transitory figure as far as they're concerned -a moving image in a picture." She touched his mug of cider and it became a crystal goblet of glowing yellow-white wine. She repeated the process for her own drink. Bec helped herself to a generous gulp of the wine, while Banedon took a fastidious sip. It was good: flavoured of honey and the sun, with an astringence that saved it from being too sweet. She continued, speaking curtly to him: "Never forget that you really are as nothing to the gods -- you yourself, that is. Of course, Ishir and Kai wish the Sommlending to defeat the Darklord and annihilate his evil spawn, and so long as you can help them do so they will try to intervene to help you. But, as soon as they believe that you're in a situation too parlous for their aid to save your life, they'll abandon you. They've got greater things on their minds than the survival of a single individual: they have a war to win, and they can't afford to waste too many tears on the casualties of foolhardy skirmishes." Banedon took this hard. Every night, when he remembered, he prayed to Ishir and Kai for their help and their protection. His prayers would seem to have been wasted. "Then what can I do?" he asked, his voice hoarse, his throat dry. "You can, just for a start, understand the nature of illusion," said Bec. She clapped her hands, once, twice, and the sound of the dancing, singing, drinking peasants vanished, to be replaced by the whine of a dead wind soughing over an empty plain. The figures of the celebrants, the dogs, the pigs and even the crude buildings -- all stood momentarily motionless, and then collapsed in flutters to become heaps of gaudily painted canvas. The wind tugged at these, and they fragmented into bright shards and slivers of paint which fluttered away into a barren expanse where the sun hammered its harsh yellow light down onto the shifting sands.

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Banedon and Bec were left sitting on their own, surrounded by the waste, at the only remaining table-bench. She tapped her fingers quickly on the rough wood and a parasol appeared above them, shielding them from the worst of the sun's heat. They were not entirely alone, however, as Banedon suddenly realized when a figure who had been lying flat-out on the dust beside them slowly moaned and pulled himself to his feet. His robe -- silver stars studding a field of blue -- was instantly familiar to Banedon as the costume of an allegiate of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, but at first he couldn't recognize the face. Bec looked irritated, stared at her palms as if there might be something overtly wrong with them, and clapped them together again. The apparition failed to disappear. "We were supposed to be alone," she spat crossly. "I don't wish to intrude," said the stranger with a richly cidrous belch, "but you seem to have made something of a mistake." He brushed the fingers of one hand through his beard and with the other smoothed away the dirt from his face. "Guildmaster!" Banedon exclaimed, half standing up from his bench. "The very same," the Guildmaster agreed dourly. "You wouldn't happen to have some antacid herbs with you, would you? It seems I've, harrumph . . ." "But what . . . what're you doing in my dream?" Banedon felt as if someone had been rifling through details of his most intimate secrets. That the "someone" should be his Guildmaster only went to make things worse. "I didn't exactly choose to come here," said the Guildmaster drily. He turned to look at Bec, his eyes vividly bright despite the obvious exhaustion which lay behind them. Banedon subsided, awed at his own brief arrogance and pettiness. "I'm afraid," said the Guildmaster to Bec, "that, for various reasons, when your chimera drew Banedon into his dream it drew in me, too. And here I am to stay until the boy awakens and his dream dissolves." "I suppose we'll just have to accept you," said Bec after a long pause. "Come and sit down in the shade here beside us." She crooked the little finger of her right hand until it lay between her thumb and forefinger, and waved this symbol in the general direction of the Guildmaster. Immediately a goblet of the cool nectar-like wine lay on the table-bench before him. The old man obediently took a seat, swirling his

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robe beneath him and making himself comfortable, his elbows on the table and his dusty beard cupped in his hands. "Now we can drink and talk," she said. "Just, er, talk for me, I'm afraid," said the Guildmaster, eyeing his glass of wine queasily. Banedon sipped again, and looked expectant. "You," said Bec, with a stab of her finger at his chest, "are, I imagine, wondering what your purpose in all this sad pageant of war might be. Right?" That wasn't exactly what had been in his mind -- he was more interested in knowing whether or not he personally would survive -- but he nodded anyway. "Right." "The chances are high that you will survive," said Bec, answering his unspoken question. "At least, Alyss says that you will. Of course, she'd lie to me about it if it suited her, but I can't think why she'd do so in this case." Banedon looked ashamed of himself. "So," said Bec, "let's assume for the moment that you're going to struggle through it all, no matter how incompetently you go about it -which, to go by past form, is very incompetently indeed." She drained her goblet and stared at it for a moment: rather nervously, it filled up again. "Let's think instead why Ishir and Kai might have decided to put you here in the middle of the war." "Was it actually their decision?" said the Guildmaster, leaning forward, his brow twisted. "I thought Banedon was in the thick of things simply by accident. I sent him to tell the Kai Grand Master about Vonotar's defection. If I'd known Zagarna would act so soon, I'd have sent one of the more senior and competent Guild members. Just about anybody but Banedon, in fact. Surely it's merely chance that . . ." "Many small things happen by chance," said Bec, "but most of the more important things are planned or at least foreseen by the gods. No, Ishir and Kai specifically selected Banedon to serve their purposes." The two of them were talking as if he weren't there, and Banedon felt resentful. He half-coughed, half-grunted, just to remind them of his presence. "All right, all right," snapped Bec. "The impatience of youth!" Her voice softened, and now she spoke directly to the apprentice magician. "Well, to tell you the truth, that's what it's all about: youth. You see, as far as you Sommlending are concerned, Magnamund is a very old world -- whenever you think about how old it is, you tend to assume that it's

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been in existence for all eternity. But the gods see things differently. To them, Magnamund was created . . . hmm, not yesterday, perhaps, but certainly not longer ago than the day before yesterday. To them, it's a very young world. That's why you have no real value to them, any of you, as individuals." This was the second time she'd said this, or something like it, and the thought chilled Banedon. To judge by the Guildmaster's face, he, too, found the notion unnerving. Yet both of them began to grasp at something of the true nature of the deities they had worshipped all their lives. "However," Bec continued, "you, Banedon, if you prove indeed to be the lucky one, kindle just the tiniest bit of interest in the hearts of Ishir and Kai -- because you, like Magnamund, are youthful and inexperienced. You're at an age of transition. You still retain many -- just about all -- of the gaucheries and affectations of youth, yet if you allow your soul to follow its own course you'll very soon attain full maturity . . . adulthood." She tapped his goblet, and gestured that he should raise it to his lips. He obeyed. Bec continued: "One moment you'll be a child and the next you'll be an adult. The whole transitional process might be a very slow one, spread over a year or two, but the moment of transition itself will be a matter of just those few seconds. "It's much the same with Magnamund. It seems that the youth of the world is drawing to its close. This might mean that the time of its achieving maturity may lie ten thousand years in the future -- still mere moments away in terms of Aon's timescales, of course -- but Ishir and Kai think, in their wisdom, that the instant of transition lies much closer than that. If, that is, they can find three young people from among the Sommlending whose attainment of maturity can be used as a focus -- or a symbol, call it what you will -- for what is happening to the planet as a whole." "Three young people?" said the Guildmaster, his voice dusty. "I take it that the gods regard Banedon as possibly one of them, but . . ." "The boy in the forest!" exclaimed Banedon. The Guildmaster swivelled to look at him, and Banedon swiftly explained how Silent Wolf, the last of the Kai and an acolyte of that Order just as Banedon was an acolyte of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, had saved his life in the forest. "Only," concluded Banedon, "he's not called Silent Wolf any longer. Because he's the last of the Kai he's changed his name. He calls himself Lone Wolf now." Banedon turned to Bec.

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"It's him -- Lone Wolf -- isn't it? He's one of the other people the gods have chosen to serve them, isn't he?" "It would seem so," said Bec. "But who's the third?" said Banedon. "A girl called Qinefer," Bec replied. "You haven't met her yet. Indeed, you won't meet her for a long while. Your friend Lone Wolf will meet her sooner than that, though, and in due course he'll recognize her for what she is." The wind around them was growing stronger, and had reversed its direction. "But don't go around regarding yourselves as the chosen ones or anything like that. As far as Ishir and Kai are concerned, they can wait ten thousand years longer for another set of youngsters like you three to come along and help them drive back Evil from Magnamund." "What must we -- must I -- do to help them?" said Banedon. "Just allow yourself to grow. Oh, I don't mean your body -- that'll keep growing of its own accord, so long as some kraan doesn't decide to have it for breakfast. I mean your mind and your spirit must grow, too. You've got it within you to become one of the greatest and most powerful of magicians ever known to Magnamund, but you can't just wave a wand and expect your latent powers suddenly to spring into actuality. You yourself have got to develop so that they can develop from within you." "I see," said Banedon softly, believing that he was speaking the truth -- which he almost was. The Guildmaster snatched a quick look at Banedon's face, and saw this. One day the young man would understand entirely what Bec was talking about, and on that day Banedon would genuinely have achieved adulthood. "Where does Alyss come into all this?" asked Banedon after a few moments' pause. "Yes," agreed the Guildmaster, "just who is Alyss, and what part has she to play?" Bec began to laugh. The noise was not the light tinkling that one might have expected but a raucous guffaw. The wind was now howling about their ears, and the brightly coloured scraps of paint and tatters of cloth were being blown in from the desert. "Ah, Banedon, Banedon," she said. "Assuming you live to see the day, some time in the future you'll find you can answer your own questions." Some of the orts of colour were mingling together, building themselves up into distinct regions of different hues. Before the astonished

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gaze of Banedon and the Guildmaster, shapes grew up around them. The first to take on coherent form was that of a scrounging mongrel, which wagged its tail at them and then pottered off to look for who knew what. Soon their table-bench was only one of several, and there were hearty peasants seated at the others. A whirling eddy formed to piece together the sprawled form of Gruttle, who pulled himself groggily to his feet, affectionately punched his wife in the throat, and plonked himself heavily down beside her, smiling at Banedon and the Guildmaster. The austere lighting that had surrounded them had been transmuted into a brilliant display of innumerable vivid, moving colours. The voice of the shrieking wind was pulled by skilled fingers into a million different threads of sound, and these were swiftly woven in their myriad combinations into the cacophonous racket of the country carnival -barking dogs, laughing men and women, children crying and children whooping, the wheezing of the accordion, geese cackling and snapping, domestic animals grunting and lowing and mewling and bleating and clucking . . . "Ah, my Bec's been telling you her, you know, nonsense again, has she?" said Gruttle jovially. "Here have a drop more . . . say, what's happened to, like, your mug, young man?" Bec snapped her fingers in irritation, and the crystal goblets instantly became crudely made mugs of rough clay. "Eyes must be going funny," muttered Gruttle as he topped up all their drinks. The cloying bitter-sweetness of the cider rankled in Banedon's nostrils. "I think it's about time you woke up now, Banedon," said Bec. "But he's only just, like, you know, got here!" Gruttle protested. "He's not even thrown up once! I was hoping he and I could have a nice long, you know, polychromatic talk, and I could answer all his questions." "You've been on that ground longer than you thought," said his wife, not unkindly. "I've been doing your talking for you while you've been sleeping. And you can stop eyeing that young Honia when you think I'm not looking. She's much too young for you, and she's a real heartbreaker if ever I saw one." Gruttle, who had been carefully gazing past his wife's shoulder while doing his utmost to look as if he weren't, shifted his attention instantly back to Bec's face. She turned aside, looking sour and contemptuous, but she winked at Banedon. "As I was saying, young man, I think it's time you were waking up.

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We'll be sorry you have to go, but no doubt we'll see you again, in the fullness of the gods' good time. And it's sorry I am that you can't stay with us as well," she said, turning to the Guildmaster with what would have been a mockery of courtesy had it not obviously been so sincerely felt. "I'm supposing that you'll be having to get back that Brotherhood of the Crystal Star of yours." The old man nodded solemnly. Banedon wondered if he could detect on his superior's face just a trace of longing for another hour or two here in the middle of the party. "Yes," said the Guildmaster orotundly. "Alas, good woman, my duties call me. Perhaps another day . . .?" "I wish I could say 'yes'," responded Bec a little sharply, "but I don't think it's likely to happen. The tapestry belongs to Banedon: to anyone else who looks upon it it's nothing but a picture in threads. Perhaps, if you ever meet Alyss . . ." She let the sentence die. Clearly she thought this last was especially improbable. The Guildmaster sighed. Oh for a world away from Magnamund, where one could go just from time to time to escape one's responsibilities for a few hours, where all that mattered was the quality of the cider and the toughness of the bread. But for him it could never be. As Bec had said, the creatures of Magnamund were only the illusions of the gods: only a few chosen people would ever be able to go deeper than that, to become the illusions of illusions. He wondered why it was that he didn't feel the appropriate sense of having been privileged to have had the experience at least one time -- why, instead, his emotions were of resentment and resignation that he could never have it again. People, he thought, even the old and the wise, were like that: always wanting something beyond what they'd already got. The scene around them was ebbing and flowing, losing detail around the edges. Banedon felt as if there were darkness encroaching all around the circle of lightness which represented his direct gaze. The colours dimmed, and across the wall of a house he could quite clearly see parallel and crossing diagonal lines, for all the world as if the wall were not of solid stonework but had instead been stitched by some gargantuan seamstress. Gruttle's face froze, his mouth open, and his features became twodimensional. The sounds faded. Only Bec retained any animation. Once again she winked at Banedon, and he knew where he had seen those feline green eyes before. And then even she was gone into a tunnel of thundering blackness . . .

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3 The Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star leapt urgently backwards from the bowl, throwing up his hands to defend his face as the water evaporated in a blast of superheated steam. The bowl splintered, and fell into four neat pieces. A valuable manuscript which had been nearby was drenched by the steam, its illumination destroyed beyond any hope of restoration. 4 Banedon awoke to find that he was in the middle of a thunderstorm. His mouth was open, and a rivulet of muddy rainwater was dribbling into it. His hair was plastered to the side of his head and his robe was heavy and sodden. The tapestry in his hand was, curiously, quite dry. However, the figures in the pastoral scene were no longer mobile: they were frozen in the midst of their dancing and jollification. He saw, with a smile, that Bec's face still retained its wink, and he kissed her image fondly. He tucked the tapestry away in a pocket of his robe, hauled himself to his feet, and with difficulty began to trudge towards Toran. How do I know I'm going in the right direction? he thought. Because I'm helping you, Alyss responded. Yes, but how do I know you're not just a figment of my imagination? You're a pest, Banedon. Look, if you need some physical sign that I'm with you, will this do? "This" was a signpost which popped in and out of existence at the edge of the clearing. Through the driving rain Banedon could just make out the words burnt into its crossbar. An arrow pointing back along the route he had just taken was labelled KAI MONASTERY Another guided him ahead to TORAN As soon as he had registered the words the signpost flicked out of vision again.

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Yes, he thought teasingly, but how do I know that the signpost wasn't just a figment of my imagination? Because . . . Oh, shut up, Banedon! 5 Inside the tunnel the air was first cool and then cold. Lone Wolf inched forwards, the blackness in front of him so dense that it seemed almost tangible. After he had been going for some minutes he turned to look back along the way he had come. A small square of light indicated the tunnel's entrance. Looking in that direction he could see the silhouettes of twisted fungoid shapes on the walls, floor and ceiling. He could see also other unsettlingly still shapes at whose identity he didn't wish to guess. He turned his attention forward, and told himself to stop thinking that it might have been better to risk the slopes. The height of the tunnel soon decreased -- or perhaps it was that the detritus on its floor was thicker the further one worked one's way into the hillside. Lone Wolf was soon forced to move forward with his head crooked forward to prevent it from bumping against the roof. The air until now had been dank and mushroomy, but his nose wrinkled with distaste as, added to the rank smell, came the stench of decay and disease. He remembered how once, when he was young, the family had gone away for the day and one of the dogs had crawled beneath the floorboards to die. On their return they had realized that Gogh was missing, but had had no idea where the greying sheepdog bitch might have gone. For a fortnight he had ranged around the countryside, calling her name -- Gogh! Gogh! Gogh! -- through the valleys and the forests. At any moment he'd expected to hear the gruff excited barking of the beast, but always, at the end of the day, he'd staggered home exhausted, disappointed, frustrated. His elder brother Jen, in his shuffling lumbering fashion, had likewise combed the countryside. Oh, Jen, who died so that I could live. I try not to think about you because the memory hurts me so much. If you're somewhere out there and you would like to take over this body in my place . . . Finally their mother, Honva, who had been complaining for some days about the stink that filled their home, persuaded Jen to prise back the floorboards, and the corpse of Gogh had been revealed. The rats had been at the dog; her stomach had been eagerly torn open. Much worse had been the attacks of the flies and the microorganisms. Maggots, with their preternatural whiteness, wound busily as they sought the source of the light that had suddenly intruded upon

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their dark world. The reason the small boy who was now Lone Wolf had puked uncontrollably was not the sight of his pet but the lung-knotting stench. The very same stench that was becoming overpowering in the tunnel ... He wished he had a light source. Had he been more of a ghoul, he might have salvaged one from the heaped corpses surrounding the Kai Monastery. But even taking the dagger and the sword had made his stomach tighten. He suddenly remembered that he'd picked up a half-charred map, too: what had made him do that? One foot before the other. Place the heel of the leading foot to the toe of the following. Then swing round the following foot so that it becomes the leader, its heel positioned snugly against the toe of what's now the follower. Describe it all in mechanical terms and you won't be so terrified of what could be ahead. Pay no attention to the slimy things you feel against your fingers as you track your hands along the wall. That's right: just keep the feet going. First the right and then the left and then the right and then the left and it's all so very slow but then the right and then the left and then . . . And then something touched the nape of his neck. It felt like the clammy empty skin of a sausage being dragged across his flesh. Instantly he dropped down onto one knee, drawing his sword and stabbing upwards with it, all in a single movement. There was a mewl of pain from above. The beast -- whatever it was -- was emerging swiftly from a cavern in the tunnel roof. He could see it because its eyes were glowing pinkly in the darkness -- brightly enough to illuminate the tunnel for some yards on either side of him. Out of the corners of his eyes he spotted mangled human and animal remains littering the corridor. Grey blood dripped from the wound he'd inflicted on the creature. Where its mouth should have been there was a gaping orifice from which swarmed countless independently moving tentacles. The tentacles were slick with moisture, and in the pink light the liquor spattering from them looked grey. As the beast pulled itself further into the tunnel, scrabbling with its

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chitinous legs, Lone Wolf saw its red faceted eyes -- the source of the pink glow -- and the spiked ridge of horn protruding in a straight line along its back from its eyes towards its rear. It made a noise like an offended kitten, but a thousand times as loud. He backed away from it, aware the whole time that he was advancing inexorably further into the hillside. He slashed at the tentacles with his sword, and had the gratification of seeing several of them drop severed to the ground; there they writhed for a few moments before dying. How many of these creatures might there be in the tunnel? He had no way of knowing. Should he succeed in killing this one, it might be as dangerous to go back as to go forward. The mewling was almost overpowering. The noise echoed in all directions inside the confined space. Again he hacked at the sensitive tentacles, and again he succeeded in destroying a few of them. But a thousand more sprang into existence where those had been. They sought him out, detecting his motion . . . detecting that he was the source of the creature's pain, and knowing that if the agony were to stop then he must be disposed of. Behind them the greedy red eyes regarded him speculatively. He was food, and it was a long time since this burrowcrawler had been fed. It was a creature made up of many different creatures, which congregated together in symbiosis to form what seemed to be a single animal. The tentacles were the lowliest elements of the assemblage, and were expendable -- replacements grew so swiftly. The brains of the burrowcrawler were contained in the animal which constituted its head and thorax. The six legs were mindless cartilaginous animals which attached themselves automatically to the thorax. The body and tail, twenty or more yards long, were composed of at least fifty ring-like creatures; at the very rear there was a second, inferior, brain, which was armed with a poisonous sting. Lone Wolf knew none of this. He was facing not a creature playing its essential part in the ecosystem, or anything like that, but a monster born out of nightmare. He darted a couple of paces towards the swell of tentacles and swished left, right, left again with his grey-stained sword blade. Hundreds of the crawling members scattered to the ground, but still the burrowcrawler came on. Lone Wolf retreated yet further. By now the creature had lowered

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almost its entire body into the tunnel. His boots crumbled old bones to dust and slithered on more recent kills. He would have run -- on, on through the darkness -- but he suspected that the monster might be able easily to catch him. He skittered a few swift yards further back from the burrowcrawler and drew his dagger from its sheath. If the tentacles were not the creature's weak point, then surely the eyes must be. He felt the balance of the dagger in his palm, and then gingerly held it by its blade. As the kitten-like mewing of the beast threatened to shatter his eardrums he drew the dagger up and behind his right shoulder. With a flick of his wrist he sent the blade speeding on its way. The knife missed. But not by much. Instead of plunging straight into the centre of the faceted right eye it struck just above, sinking between the outer rim of the eyeball and the chitinous plates surrounding it. The creature screamed in agony. The legs on its right side scratched twitchingly in a frenzied attempt to remove the offending object and thereby alleviate the pain. It turned its left eye to regard Lone Wolf balefully. Then it began slowly and purposefully to advance along the tunnel towards him. He turned as if to run, and abruptly its pace increased. It would seem he'd been right: if it came to a race the burrowcrawler would almost certainly win. He had no choice but to stand and fight. His sword was heavy, designed for hacking rather than fencing, but he summoned all his strength to his right arm and parried the advancing bush of eager tentacles. He flicked here and there with the razor-sharp blade, inflicting what damage he could. But he was fighting a losing battle, and he knew it. He'd inflicted severe -- possibly terminal -- damage to the creature's right eye, but in doing so he'd lost his dagger. He daren't risk throwing his sword or his axe at the other eye. Besides, it was the glow of the eyes which gave him his only light: extinguish the eyes and he would be battling in the darkness with the monster. On the other hand . . . He fled precipitously down the corridor, listening keenly for the sounds of pursuit. The monster gathered pace, its hard limbs clacking against

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the floor of the tunnel. He waited until he guessed it was just about due to overtake him, then stepped sharply to his left, hammering his body against the tunnel wall. Unable to stop itself, the burrowcrawler staggered on for a few feet, just long enough for Lone Wolf to slash downwards with his sword. This time he severed not some but all of the creature's tentacles. He dropped the sword and drew his axe from his belt. Moving with easy speed, he chopped away the three limbs on the monster's left-hand side. They shrieked and scrabbled away into the darkness. The burrowcrawler was immobilized. It attempted to force itself over onto its back so that its right-side limbs could claw at him, but it simply couldn't get the leverage. There was no room in the tunnel for it to deploy its lethal sting. Lone Wolf thrust any sympathy he might feel for the burrowcrawler to the back of his mind as he advanced the necessary couple of steps to confront its left eye, which shone its hatred at him. Two or three blows of his axe were all it took to excise the eye from its socket. This time the burrowcrawler didn't scream: either it was dead or its complex nervous system had burnt out because of the pain. Lone Wolf didn't much care which. It was an enemy which had tried to devour him and which had fed on countless other travellers -- some of them villains, no doubt, but many of them innocent wayfarers. Had it been a mindless thing he might have felt some guilt; but it had displayed an all-tooobvious intelligence in its assault on him. The eye in his hand, although dead, still glowed a fiery pink, and the light was just bright enough for him to see what he was doing. He retrieved his sword from the tunnel floor and then clambered warily over the spiky ridge on the creature's back to pluck his dagger from the wound he had inflicted above the right eye. The strange grey blood gushed onto his hand as he did so, but he was past caring. His gasping breath echoed hither and thither in the tunnel. He forced himself not to be sick from the exertion. He slid down between the flank of the great corpse and the tunnel wall, and worked his way forwards. Something tripped him up as he passed the dead creature's maw, and instinctively he reached down to seize at it. It seemed to be his belt: the burrowcrawler must have snatched it from around his waist at some point during the fight. Not really thinking too much, he

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yanked it free and dragged it along behind him. Ahead of him, a long hour later, there was a light. The other end of the tunnel. A gateway to freedom. He collapsed on the tunnel's fetid soil and allowed himself to weep for a while. Part of him was a Kai warrior, but another part of him was still only an acolyte, a barely trained youth. He could fight the Darklord's forces -- he had no doubt that the very force of his virtue would allow him to achieve magnificent conquests -- but he was being drained by all the minor conflicts in which it seemed he must engage. In the seclusion of the Kai Monastery he had been told about the dangerous creatures which roamed Magnamund -- even here, in Sommerlund -- and he'd paid the matter scant and academic interest. Now it seemed as if all the world was against him. The monster which had attacked him in the tunnel was, he knew, not one of Zagarna's vile spawn, and yet it had hindered him in his quest. It had done so not because it owed any allegiance to the forces of Darkness, nor because it felt towards him, individually, any ill will. He sensed there might be further monsters to combat before his days on Magnamund were done, and the worst of it was not the straightforward fear of them all, not even the anticipation of their ferocity, but the lack of faith he had in his own courage to keep on fighting. Surely there would come the day when he would feel his mind simply give up -- say to him: "No more." In the dim light from the distant opening he looked at the backs of his hands. They were stained and torn. He could see through the thin skin his taut tendons and the details of the phalanges. His hands looked to him like claws. He tried hard to relax the muscles of his fingers, but without success. He was lonely. He was hungry. He was exhausted. His soul was lost to despair. He was frightened not of what was to come, but of fear itself.

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4 Toran 1 The walls of the city of Toran are forty yards thick. Small children use the deep gateways as race-tracks when sprinting. Those who prefer longdistance running foray instead around the tops of the city's walls: a single circuit is nearly fifteen miles. In theory the city is a baronial confederation; in practice it is ruled by its Guilds. Inside the city are marketplaces, funfairs, parks and gardens, shallow lakes where people can row boats aimlessly to while away a sunny afternoon, money-lending shops, houses of ill repute, gambling dens, shops of various kinds purveying goods from food to "lucky amulets", family homes, taverns, lonely garret cells, gutters, sewers . . . all that you would expect of a city. But over all of these loom the great buildings belonging to the Guilds. Over here you can see the grey colossus belonging to the Guild of Tailors: above its oak door appears a gigantic version of their emblem, two crossed needles linked by a single thread. To your left is the great red-brown pyramid within which the members of the Guild of Foster-Brothers carry out their business: for a fee, they will take your low-born child and groom him (or occasionally her) for possible initiation into the Order of the Kai or the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Other tall buildings represent the Guilds of Costermongers, Stonemasons, Grocers, Merchants, Moneylenders, Travellers, Seafarers But those who come as tourists to Toran usually wish to see only the one Guild building, that of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. It towers above all of its fellows, dominating the entire city -- as indeed it should. Despite the forty-yard-thick walls, it is the magic created by the members of the Guild that has protected the city over the centuries. Long ago, they charged the very stones of the walls with sentience, so that they act to repel attackers. The home of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star is a quarter of a mile along each of its sides and a thousand feet high. Its lower floors are occupied by the magicians themselves, each of them being allocated his or her own cubicle. Near to the great entrance doors -- which weigh more than one hundred tons yet can be tapped aside by a small child capable of shaping the

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correct thought -- is the Brotherhood's Great Hall, where the Guildmaster and his Elders hold court. The huge stained-glass windows of the Hall seem almost black from the outside, yet within they cast swathes of strong colour across the mosaic-tiled floor. The splendour of all the rooms and courtyards of the Guild's building is awesome: gold here, platinum there and, dimly glimpsed through an arched doorway, the rich gleam of burnished copper. Above the building's gilt dome hovers unsupported a vast star of glinting diamond, which turns slowly at the whim of the wind. The air around this building shimmers uneasily as if sensing that the forces unleashed by the Guild allegiates within are no part of the natural world. The streets of the city are mainly narrow, crowded thoroughfares running higgledy-piggledy at absurd angles to each other. There seems to be no purpose in their arrangement, yet their conformation was carefully planned by the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star at the time of the foundation of Toran. Just as a concave mirror can be used to focus light, so the pattern of the city's streets serves as a way of focusing Left Hand energies. Straightening out one of the apparently absurd corners or adding even the meagrest of alleyways would disrupt this pattern and savagely reduce the city's defensive capabilities: the first sign of the change would be that the Brotherhood's great diamond star would come crashing to the ground. There is some poverty in Toran, although the Guilds work hard to eliminate it. Related to the poverty is a certain amount of crime, but it is a matter of little account, usually involving no more than petty theft: the streets are safe, even at night. Until Vonotar slew an Elder of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, Loren, there had been no murder in the city for several centuries. The governance of the city rests on a combination of democracy and dictatorship which should be uneasy but which in fact works very well. Every five years those citizens who are not allegiates of the Guilds vote to elect fifty representatives; the Guilds, while retaining their absolute right to rule in times of adversity, appoint a further fifty spokespeople from among their own ranks. Customarily, these are the masters of the fifty different Guilds, who on occasion are elected by Guild allegiates but who more usually earn their positions through their patent merit. These one hundred men and women debate all the major issues relating to the city, and their decisions are almost always ratified by the Guilds. If there is clearly a deep division of opinion, the Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star may choose to reverse what has been agreed beforehand. Of course, the

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Guildmaster could use his or her magical powers to affect the decision before it was taken, but, as far as is known, this has never happened; similarly, in theory he or she could act only in the interests of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, but there is trust between the Brotherhood and the other Guilds, and between the Guilds and the common people: no person who has ever been tainted with corruption can become the Brotherhood's Guildmaster. Indeed, an important qualification for anyone seeking to become the Guildmaster of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star is benevolence. This is why the current Guildmaster was appointed to his role, and why Vonotar, although possessed of far more considerable magical abilities, would, whatever the preferences and intentions of the current Guildmaster, probably have been passed over -- even had he not defected to the Darklands. The sewers of Toran are legendary throughout all Sommerlund. Unlike those in other cities, they are fully hygienic, daily cleansed by magical forces. As a result the city's public health is exemplary, its average life expectancy is almost twice that in other parts of the country. The ability of the members of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star to cure all but the worst ailments contributes to that figure. In recent years the Brotherhood has been sending peripatetic magicians throughout the country to effect cures, heal broken bones and reverse wasting diseases. Their hope is that, some day in the future, they can spread their resources wide enough so that every person in Sommerlund can grow up strong in body and mind, and that every injury and disease can be cured. But that's a long way in the future. For the moment, look at the spires and hovels of Toran and imprint the image on your mind. You're privileged to see the city the way it is, with its raucous street-traders and its bustling citizens, its gleaming buildings and its filthy by-ways. It's hardly a paradise, but it's certainly the most civilized of all the cities of Magnamund. The people are generally kind; few if any go hungry; even the shopkeepers are courteous. Look at Toran once more as it is today and remember what you see. Very soon all of this will change. 2 Leaving most of his forces pillaging Sommerlund, the Darklord Zagarna had retreated with Vonotar and a few drakkarim advisers back into the Darklands -- to Kaag.

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It was from Kaag that Zagarna had launched his attack on Sommerlund. The vast city-fortress had walls two miles high, and its sides were forty miles across. Made of black marble, it squatted malevolently in the centre of a featureless, desolate, devastated plain of ash and clinging dust. The air surrounding it, like that of all the Darklands, was tinged with a sour, orange colour. Millions of giaks had been enlisted to build the fortress; they had died in their thousands and hundreds of thousands under the cruel whips of Zagarna's slavedrivers as the vast walls had crept slowly higher. The waters of the bleak Daarg river had been mixed with the powdered bones of giaks, humans and animals to make the mortar which held together the huge blocks of marble. The leathery gates had been fashioned from the skin of Nyxator, the wise sea-dragon slain by the Darklord Vashna at the core of Magnamund in a time long before humans understood the concept of time. Zagarna was in his throne room. The throne itself, cast from pure, solid platinum, sagged under his great weight. Some twenty feet high, his blue flesh studded with claws and mandibles, his reptilian head spitting as he bubbled in his hideously quiet voice, he leaned forward to punctuate his sentences with jabs of his hands. Vonotar, his eyes like flaming embers, leaned nonchalantly against a white-hot pillar, listening to the Darklord and occasionally interpolating a remark of his own. "Toran!" said Zagarna. He let the word move around his upper mouth, and it was plain that he didn't like the taste of it much. "Toran is our last obstacle -- save Holmgard itself." Vonotar nodded. The Darklord continued. "So long as the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star remains unmolested, we cannot hope to conquer the entirety of Sommerlund. Always we'll have the seed of a cancer in the land -- a cancer that might unexpectedly grow until we find overselves driven back once more." The Darklord examined the prospect with little relish. More than eight hundred years before, he had invaded Sommerlund and besieged the Kai Monastery; at the very moment when he had assumed that triumph was his he had been ignominiously defeated and forced to retreat back behind the Durncrag Mountains, back into the Darklands. He was eager that history should not repeat itself. From a silver platter placed respectfully by the side of his throne he snatched a raw giak haunch, and chewed on it appreciatively. It seemed to him that he spent all his while being hungry; he wondered if it was the same

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for mortals. "If only," he said, his quiet voice muffled still further by the gobbets of food clogging his upper mouth, "the accursed city were not so well protected by the Brotherhood's magic, I could have taken it as easily as I took the Monastery." "Of course," Vonotar agreed. He was inspecting his fingernails. "What we need is magic. And I have magic. I have my wizards, the Nadziranim, and I have you, mind-brother. Then why should I be so uneasy about attacking this miserable Sommlending city?" "Because," said Vonotar coolly, turning his attentions to his other hand, "while you may own -- or think you own -- magicians, you have no magic yourself." Though true, this statement did not please the Darklord. He clutched the arms of his platinum throne and furious saliva dribbled down his reptilian face and torso. The last fragment of the giak haunch splattered across the white-hot floor as he hissed his displeasure at the renegade magician. Around him, his assembled drakkar courtiers twittered nervously. "Are you suggesting," he said, "that I am afraid of your puny, mortal magic? Are you accusing me of cowardice?" "No," said Vonotar. "Just of stupidity." This time the drakkarim fled to hide in the few places of concealment available in the great, glowing courtroom. No one had ever before dared to speak to Zagarna this way: creatures of all sorts had met miserable, prolonged deaths simply for using the wrong tone of voice while addressing the Darklord. But this Sommlending was . . . well, different, for reasons which they couldn't understand. Zagarna was clearly simmering at the slight, but surprisingly he wasn't coming to the boil. "Say that again, wizard," he bubbled. "All I was saying," remarked Vonotar, "is that a full-frontal attack on Toran, even if you augment your forces using magical means, is doomed to failure. I'm sure you were suggesting such an approach only to see if any of your drakkarim would have the courage to point out the idiocy of such a course. Could I have a chair, please?" A drakkar rapidly fetched one, and Vonotar directed the creature to place it beside Zagarna's throne, and on the same level. The Darklord was too perplexed by this display of insolence to do more than bubble menacingly. "Ah, that's better," said Vonotar, easing himself down. "Now we can

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talk on equal terms. So," he continued in a patronizing tone, "what I'm trying to get across to you is that, if we're to attack Toran successfully, we have to use a little cunning. You know, the stuff you have in here." He gestured towards his own grey head, and thought privately: Except, of course, that you haven't got the stuff in there. You don't know it, and you don't know that I know it, but where your intellect should be, my dimwit pal, there's nothing but a screaming abyss filled with some of the soulstuff of Naar, the King of Darkness. You're just a puppet -- but a dangerous puppet, for all that. The Darklord grunted equably, and the drakkarim gasped. "What would you suggest, wizard?" he asked. "Just a touch of . . . subtlety." Vonotar was hunched and stooped, his body racked with all the disfigurements of time, yet he still had about him something of the mien of the young man he had been less than forty-eight hours before. He tossed his thin white hair back from his high forehead and studied the Darklord's face carefully. "What we need," said the magician, "is some kind of a diversion. No, let me rephrase that. What we need is a full-scale assault on Toran from outside, led by yourself commanding as many of your troops as you can spare." "But, wizard, I thought you just said that --" Vonotar held up a crab-like hand to silence the Darklord. "Precisely. The assault will fail, but hopefully casualties won't be too high. You see, your attack will be the diversion. The real onslaught will be taking place within Toran itself, where I will be with my two trusty confederates." "And who are these?" "My giak, Carag, and my horse, Allia." "I've seen no horse of yours, wizard, and I wasn't aware that giaks had names." The Darklord seemed amused. He picked up another joint of giak and looked at it with studied quizzicality. "I do hope I'm not about to eat your co-conspirator," he remarked with heavy irony, and the drakkarim dutifully howled with laughter. Vonotar's face didn't stir. "I think it unlikely, Zagarna," he said quietly, after the echoes of the drakkarim's artificial guffaws had faded away. "I've taken certain . . . precautions to ensure that nothing too untoward happens to Carag. Just a little adaptation here and there, you understand. But now it would take a hundred of his fellows to kill him, and his flesh would corrode the stomach of even yourself."

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Zagarna looked at the meat in his great, clawed hand, and very deliberately forced himself to take a bite. He swallowed. Satisfied that there were no ill-effects, he asked Vonotar: "If you can do this for one giak, why can't you do it for all the others in my armies?" "Perhaps one day," said Vonotar with an airily dismissive wave. "Right now we're a little short of -- you know -- time? Perhaps I could continue?" "Go on . . . go ahead," bubbled Zagarna. "Let me show you my allies," said Vonotar. He climbed down from the throne platform and slapped his hands together imperiously. At once there was a thunder of fists on the courtroom's ebony door. "That was quick," Zagarna noted. "I told you I'd made a few modifications to Carag," said Vonotar. "I can bring him to wherever I happen to be faster than a wink of my eye. May he be permitted to enter?" The Darklord nodded, unhappily. He had a terrible feeling that control was being eased out of his own powerful hands. Vonotar clapped his hands again, and immediately there stood beside him a squat yellow-green giak whose eyes chased warily over the drakkarim and then to the visage of the Darklord himself. "Master . . . call . . . I . . . come," said Carag. On "adopting" the giak, Vonotar had used his full mental powers to impress upon Carag that, no matter what came about, he must obey the magician at all times. This made Carag unique among the giaks. He had anyway been more intelligent than the vast majority of his fellows, having picked up a few words of Sommlending. Now, in addition, he was freed of the giaks' most noteworthy weakness: the necessity of always following the most powerful leader nearby. It would have been overestimating him to say that he had a loyalty towards Vonotar, but the effect was very much the same. "Carag," said the magician gently, "if my friend Zagarna here were to ask you how to conquer Toran, what advice would you give him?" "I . . . say easy. All . . . need . . . do is . . . kill all the . . . people . . then . . . burn down all . . . the . . . buildings." Carag turned to Vonotar and his fleshless lips split in a vicious grin. "I . . . like the burning down . . . bit," he added by way of explanation. "Well, Carag," said Vonotar. "That's very good advice -- in its way," he hastily amended. "In fact, that's exactly the sort of plan that the Darklord

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had in mind. However, I think we can do better than that, don't you?" Obediently Carag nodded. He knew that whatever Vonotar said was the unshakable truth. "We . . . could . . . burn down . . . buildings . . . before . . . we . . . kill . . . all people?" he suggested hopefully. "No, no," said Vonotar gently. "An improvement, perhaps, but I think we could still dream up something with a little more -- how shall I put it? -finesse." "Use . . . magic?" "Now you're getting very much closer, little friend," said Vonotar heartily, clapping Carag across the shoulder. "I'm almost certainly the most powerful magician in the whole of Magnamund" -- except Alyss, his mind irritatingly reminded him -- "but even so I think it unlikely that I could single-handedly counter the combined powers of all the allegiates of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star." He took a couple of paces away, folded his arms theatrically, and then turned to stare at Carag. The little flames in his eyes flared to a blue heat. "Now, Carag, I want you to think very carefully." The giak nodded. "I . . . do my . . . best." "If a full-scale military attack won't work on its own, and if magic won't work on its own, and if even a combination of the two of them is likely to be driven back, what do you think we could try instead?" "Un . . . magic," said Carag after a long pause. He looked as if he expected to be punished. "Precisely," snapped Vonotar, to the giak's abject relief. "We use unmagic!" All trace of the playful pedagogue had gone from him now. "You see it, don't you, Zagarna?" "By the blood and belly of Naar, I do!" cried the Darklord, slapping his thighs with loud delight, obviously wondering what in the world Vonotar was talking about. "Good," said the magician, one eyebrow cocked sceptically. "As you have so swiftly perceived, anyone dressed in the robe of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star can obtain easy entrance to Toran. Should the guards show any doubts, all he needs to do is to perform a few simple magical tricks -baubles for the natives, as it were." He waved his fingers, shaped a thought, and for a long few seconds the Darklord was reduced to the size of a tiny rodent. Zagarna scuttled backwards and forwards on his outsized throne, bubbling in high-pitched

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terror. He was in a blazing fury when Vonotar took mercy and returned him to normal size. The Darklord raised himself impetuously, but the magician waved him back and he forced himself to control his wrath. "That's the kind of piffling trick I mean," Vonotar explained crisply. "Anyone reasonably adept in the lore of Left Hand magic can do things like that. Of course, your Nadziranim are capable of similar trivia. However, in me you have a fusion of the Left Hand ways of thinking with the knowledge imparted to me by the Nadziranim. I can do things on a rather more interesting scale." He snapped his fingers and all of Kaag became crystal-clear glass. In every direction one could see Zagarna's spawn running around in panic as the floor seemed to disappear beneath them. Even the Darklord himself blenched, his face turning a pale blue. Vonotar held out his right hand, palm upwards, and then slowly turned it over. As he did so the walls and floor became progressively more visible until, when his palm was facing directly downwards, they had returned to their customary state. "Now," he said, his voice filled with sudden intensity, leaning forward urgently to stare straight into Zagarna's eyes, "that's exactly the sort of thing the Guild would expect me to do if I'd returned unscathed from the Darklands. But, of course, I'm not going to do anything of the sort." Carag looked baffled. Zagarna did his best not to. "Instead," hissed Vonotar, "from out of the west will come an ancient, haggard member of the Brotherhood, leading behind him a giak that he's been able to enslave. All of the Guild allegiates will vaguely remember having met this magician before, but none of them will be able quite to place him. He'll be capable of only minor magic -- so even if it should cross the minds of any of them to think of the vanished Vonotar, they'll dismiss the thought at once. Anyway, Vonotar was a young man, not a stooped and ancient dotard like this. "You see the simplicity!" he cried, stretching with a creaking effort up to his full height. "It's just as Carag said it should be. All I have to do is unmagic myself!" "Your . . eyes," said Carag after a moment. "You were saying?" said Vonotar politely, turning to look at the quivering giak. The flames had gone, and in their place were soft, liquid brown eyes; then the flames returned. "Carag, of course, will act the part of my captive. I shall drag him

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behind me as I ride along on my proud steed." "I was going to ask about the horse," bubbled Zagarna. "Oh," said Vonotar lightly, "I have her here with me. Now, where did I put you, Allia?" He rummaged in the pockets of his robe for a few moments and produced a tiny white struggling creature. When first he had come to the Darklands he had reckoned that there might come the day when he might need the mare again, and so he had shrunk her down small enough to fit in his pocket. He had fed her blades of grass whenever he had remembered. With a wave of his hand he created a carpet of snow on the searingly hot floor. The snow didn't melt; instead, a little border of chilled floor formed around it. "I haven't had time to make general improvements to Allia as yet," explained Vonotar. "She can breathe this muck you call air, but I think your floor would be just a little too hot for her sensitive hooves." Soothing the tiny creature with the back of a finger, he set her down carefully amid the snow and then did something with his fingers which was too lightning-swift for anyone else to follow. In a few moments a large silver-grey mare was standing on the carpet of snow, flicking her tail and whinnying with nervousness. "Rather a fine mount for a magician as ancient and decrepit as myself, you may think, but she'll do," Vonotar said with a wintry smile. He slapped her gleaming grey rump affectionately, and Allia calmed a little. "This is all very well, wizard," said the Darklord, "but what do you and your giak hope to achieve once you've infiltrated the Brotherhood?" "Ah, that's where the diversion comes in," said Vonotar. He cocked a thumb and Allia shrank to her former size. He picked her up, popped her into a pocket, and waved his hand so that the snow -- with noticeable reluctance -- disappeared. "Once we're securely in place, you must bring your armies to attack the city, and then we'll . . ." 3 Lone Wolf awoke to find that he was still clutching his belt. Only, it wasn't his belt. His own was still around his waist. The one he'd seized from the jaws of the burrowcrawler must have belonged to one of its earlier victims. He turned the black leather idly over in his hands. The belt itself was useless to him, but attached to it was a sheathed

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dagger. On the principle that two daggers are better than one, he stripped the sheath from the stranger's belt and patiently hooped it onto his own. Also attached to the belt was a money-pouch which, on examination, he found to contain a handful of gold crowns. Right now money was the least of his problems, but the cash might come in useful at some point in the future. He stuffed it away in a pocket. The sleep had done him good. He felt refreshed and almost exhilarated, despite a stiffness in his back. The wall of the tunnel was hard, and he had slept hunched up against it. He leapt to his feet and pushed on out of the old mineshaft and into the forest. The ground underfoot was soggy; he guessed correctly that the rainstorm he'd been expecting must have come and gone while he slept. The early rays of the morning sun were fumbling through the fresh, green leaves of spring. The birds were chirping and squawking as they darted from treetop to treetop far above him. He saw a squirrel darting out from the undergrowth ahead of him, and paused to watch with delight as it scrambled up the bark of a huge oak tree. The scent of fresh pine needles was rife, and he breathed it in deeply. After a short while the spaces between the trees began to increase, and he realized that at last he was nearing the edge of the forest. He moved more cautiously now, dashing from trunk to trunk, pausing each time to check the skies to make sure he wasn't being observed. But it seemed the Darklord's forces had still not reached this part of the forest. They'd had plenty of time to do so, so perhaps they'd given up their scouring operation. Through the thinly scattered trees ahead of him he could hear the sound of many human voices, the squeal of rusty cartwheels, the babble of children. His initial response was to rush forward to join all these people -surely there'd be strength in numbers -- but then he held himself in check. This might be a trap: it wasn't beyond the powers of the Darklord to force his giaks or drakkarim to imitate human noises. He threw himself on to his belly, and worked his way in a rapid snakelike movement towards the last fringe of the trees. The moving tableau before him was bleak and depressing. Here were refugees in their thousands, fleeing southwards and away from the carnage. Many of them were wounded, some severely. Over there four small children carried a litter on which lay their grandfather, blood streaming from where his eyes should have been. A young man walked along, his face glazed with madness, a filthy bandage covering the stump of his shoulder; on his other arm was a girl who had once been beautiful but whose face was now a

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patchwork of lacerations. She was limping pitifully, screaming with every pace; one of her feet had been burnt away to the ankle. Her long blonde hair was sprinkled with the red-brown of dried blood. An elderly woman was trudging along mindlessly, the skin from the rear of her thighs and calves trailing along the dusty ground behind her. In incongruous contrast, there were also leaping, dancing children to whom the whole trek was a great adventure: they sprang and laughed around the legs of their elders, playing games and singing nonsense songs. But even their joyous gambolling couldn't conceal the general atmosphere of grey, bleak, pained despondency which shrouded the sorry procession. Lone Wolf breathed in whistlingly, biting his lower lip. The dismal scene struck at the roots of his compassion, and he wished he could do something to alleviate the suffering of these people. But there was nothing. Oh, yes, perhaps he could join them and help save a few lives the next time that a kraan attacked the column, but that would give them only a temporary relief: it wouldn't be long until he'd sacrificed his own life, leaving the refugees once again unprotected and Sommerlund without a single survivor of the Kai. He saw a little boy staggering past, his cheek cut away, flies buzzing around the wreckage of his face, and it was difficult to stop himself from running forwards to comfort the child. But . . . But his first duty was to survive. He was the last of all the Kai, and as such was obliged to pass on the lore and principles of the Kai to a new generation. Otherwise, Sommerlund would never be safe from the ravages of the Darklords. To die would be easy; to stay alive was the harder option, but circumstances had forced it upon him. He compromised, and began to move through the forest southwards, parallel with the road but about a hundred yards from it. He could still hear the slow, dreary sounds of the dragging column of people making their miserable way from the main scene of battle, and occasionally he glimpsed their dun clothing through a gap in the trees. If they were attacked, he might have a chance of saving some of them at minimum risk to himself. He'd almost passed the huge, silvery boulder when he noticed that out from behind it protruded a pair of booted legs. He was tempted to keep going -- what was one corpse more or less in this landscape of war? -- but it was possible the owner of those legs was still alive. Surely it was his duty to see if he could help? -- just so long as he was not seriously diverted from his

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quest to reach Holmgard . . . He was still wary of possible traps, and so he moved swiftly and quietly. He pressed his back against the boulder, and then inched around it, craning his neck to look at what might be behind. He was ready at any moment to flee. He flexed the fingers of his right hand around the haft of the chillingly sharp dagger he'd inherited after his tussle in the tunnel. The supine form crumpled on the grassy ground was that of a soldier. He was clearly badly wounded. His face was hard to identify as such: it was puffed, blackened and swollen by myriad bruises and cuts. His left arm had been cut almost through by a vicious sword-slash. His right leg was crooked at an impossible angle; the ragged end of the thighbone peeped gruesomely through a tear in his trousers. He had been sick several times while lying there, and his face was framed in a pool of his own drying vomit. By his side lay a spear and a shield. Lone Wolf caught his breath as he recognized the emblem painted on the shield: the flying white horse -- the symbol of the Crown Prince of Sommerlund. This soldier must have come from the prince's elite army. Perhaps Lone Wolf's quest was nearly over! If Prince Pelathar were near here with his forces, then Lone Wolf could join him and find safe escort back to Holmgard. He'd assumed that the soldier was dead, but then heard a low, weak moan. The man's bruised eyelids fluttered feebly. At once Lone Wolf dropped his dagger to rush to the man's side. Kneeling there, he cupped one hand under the soldier's head, feeling the clotted blood that patterned the curly blond hair; with his other hand he searched the soldier's neck for even the slightest pulse. At last his fingers found a faint and irregular beating. The soldier opened his eyes. They were the grey of a winter's sky and piercingly clear. The puffing of his flesh meant that he was unable to force the lids more than half-open. "A Kai," he said, his voice so distant and husky that Lone Wolf could hardly distinguish the words. "By all that's good in the world, a Kai." The eyes lost their focus and closed again. However, a little colour was returning to the soldier's face. Lone Wolf cursed the fact that he didn't have better-developed healing powers: all he could do was to wish good health to the man, just as any person might do for another. He tried to imagine his own body-field spreading out like a blanket so that it covered the soldier's broken form. Whether it was coincidence or not he couldn't tell, but the man opened

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his eyes once more, and a scant resemblance of vigour came to his battered features. "Thirsty," he said hoarsely. Lone Wolf had no water with him, but he saw the man had a flask on his belt. He unclipped it hastily, pulled out the cork stopper, and held it tremblingly to the soldier's lips. "Can't reach. Help me . . . raise head." With Lone Wolf's hand supporting, the soldier was able to take a long pull at the flask. Instantly he spat the liquid out; it ran in a stream down his chin. "Sorry. Forgot." His mouth twisted into what was clearly intended as a smile. "Filled with . . . booze. Good after battle. But I need water . . . water's what I need right now." His eyes rolled and he fainted. Lone Wolf smelled the flask and winced. He had sometimes tasted wines and ciders on special occasions at the Kai Monastery, but this stuff was clearly far more potent than anything he had encountered before. Feeling that it was something of a waste, but unable to think of any alternative, he poured the stuff into a bush, shuddering at the thought of the effect the liquor might have on the sensitive roots. He'd leapt over one of the abundant streams in this region only a minute or two before, and so now he rushed back to fill the metal flask with water. When he returned the soldier had regained consciousness. "Thank the gods you're back," he said, his soft voice so broken that Lone Wolf had an image of it being torn roughly along the edges by the clumsy hand of a small child. "Thought you'd deserted me, young Kai Lord. Wouldn't have blamed you. Not at all. I'm not . . . not much use to anyone at the moment. Be dead before nightfall, I expect. Well, it's been . . ." The soldier's voice broke off and his body convulsed as he coughed several gobbets of thick, bright-red blood. Lone Wolf waited until the coughing had subsided and then put an arm under the man's shoulders. He raised him until he was half-sitting up, and once again put the mouth of the flask to the man's lips. The soldier took a couple of mouthfuls and then pulled his head away. "Not too much, my friend," he said, his voice perceptibly stronger. "Take too much water when you've got a thirst like mine and all you do is throw it up again. Dries you out even more than before. Could you kill me, please?" The last sentence was spoken in such an off-hand manner that Lone

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Wolf didn't at first register it. When he did he was appalled. "Say that again," he said. "I just asked if you would be so good as to kill me. Looks like I'm going to die anyway, so might as well get it over with. Quick chop with a blade better'n lying here waiting for a wolf or a giak." "But you're not going to die!" Even as he spoke the words Lone Wolf recognized that they were probably a lie. Still, he'd seen people who had been more severely injured than this in hunting accidents who had nevertheless somehow managed to pull through. "You're a kind young man, my friend," said the soldier, "but there's no need for you to be telling me a falsehood. I've been on too many campaigns not to know when a man's time has come." "Hmmm. And were there any Kai with you?" "No. . .: "There's a Kai with you now. We Kai are taught how to develop the latent powers of healing that every human being possesses, so that we can cure people whom even the best of physicians would leave for dead. Look at yourself, for example. When I found you, you were poised right on the lintel of the dark door. Now you're backing away from it. I wouldn't put much money on your winning a race just yet, but soon we'll have you standing." He'd heard nurses and physicians speak with this forced joviality and it always seemed to work for them, so . . . The soldier squinted sceptically through his swollen eyelids. He's got good cause to be sceptical, thought Lone Wolf, because I couldn't heal my own little finger if I cut it. But if I can get him to believe that I have healing powers then there's just a chance he'll live. Out loud he said: "I can't spare as much time with you as I'd like to. I'm on an urgent mission -- we Kai are busy folk, you know -- and I've already dallied here longer than I should have. But I'll see what I can do." He looked down at the soldier propped against his arm, and he wondered what, if anything, he actually could do. Now that he came to think about it seriously, though, there was a chance. "That arm'll have to come off, of course," he said bluntly, hoping the shift to frank brutality in his speech would conceal his own sparrow-like nervousness. "But I think I can save the leg. The gash at the back of your head isn't too bad: when you return to your company the sawbones'll probably want to put a few stitches in it, but it's all right for now. The leg's going to be a bit more difficult, but I'm not too worried about it. How did

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you manage to get yourself messed up like this, anyway?" While Lone Wolf was examining the broken leg, the man explained that his name was Trimis and that he was, as Lone Wolf had surmised from the emblem on the shield, a foot-soldier in the army of Crown Prince Pelathar, the only son of King Ulnar. The Prince had been leading a few hundred of his troops on a routine patrol through Sommerlund when, near the Alema Bridge, several thousand of Zagarna's spawn had descended from the air to attack them. Trimis screamed as Lone Wolf accidentally prodded a raw nerve, then he carried on as if nothing had happened. Every member of the Prince's army had fought with the strength of ten except himself, Trimis, who had been fighting with the strength of twenty. Lone Wolf jerked with bitter amusement, and after a little while Trimis modestly amended the figure to fifteen -- after all, one of his arms was useless. Anyway, Trimis had been fighting for his Prince with the strength of fifteen when suddenly a kraan -- no, too big to be a kraan, he'd have slaughtered a kraan without even noticing, must have been an imperial zlanbeast at the very least -- this blisteringly huge bugger of a monster, bigger than a two-storey house, had swooped down out of the skies and plucked him from the ground. Trimis screamed again. This time he added a selection of words, some of which Lone Wolf recognized and others of which -- well, he was quite glad he didn't know their meaning. Still, they might come in handy one day, so he memorized a few. So there was Trimis, slashing and thrusting vainly with his spear while this colossal monster of an imperial zlanbeast hoisted him high into the air and away over the forest. At last Trimis had landed a vital blow, and the spawn had shrieked in pain and despair and dropped him like a stone. He'd come crashing down through the branches to land where Lone Wolf had found him. He'd broken his leg at some point during his descent through the trees; nevertheless, had it not been for the branches slowing his fall he'd have been killed on reaching the ground, so all in all he counted himself a lucky man and did the young Kai Lord really imagine he could save his life? "Yes, I think so," said Lone Wolf, and to his surprise he found that this time he meant it. "But it's going to be pretty painful for you. I'll do as much as I can to ease the pain, but . . . well . . . right now I'm glad I'm not you." "Aha. Like that, is it?"

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"It is. Do you have tinder and a spark?" Trimis gestured with his good arm towards his belt, where there was clipped a small box of basic provisions. Lone Wolf opened it and spilled out its contents. He was amazed by some of the things the soldier had carried as essential supplies. Some dried meat -- yes, to be expected. A few biscuits -a sensible choice. String -- perfectly reasonable. But a pack of cards, a set of dice, a packet of condoms, a collection of quite astonishing miniature watercolours, a little tin of Lourden tobacco and a toothpick? Surely soldiers were supposed to travel light? He reckoned he could understand the other luxuries, but the toothpick baffled him. He asked Trimis about this as he built up the pieces of tinder into a neat cone and struck a spark at them. "Ever eaten dried meat?" the soldier responded laconically. Lone Wolf admitted that he hadn't. "Well, whenever you do, you'll discover why soldiers always carry toothpicks." "Oh. I see. "Say, my young friend, why're you building up a fire?" Lone Wolf had gathered some dry twigs, and was now nursing a merry little blaze. He had put the blade of his axe into the fire and was watching as it heated up. "I told you you weren't going to like this," he said, distractedly. Perhaps he needed a little more wood. He was half-turned to ask Trimis to go and fetch some when he realized that, of course, the soldier couldn't move. Lone Wolf hoped the thin column of smoke wouldn't attract a kraan; he was reassured by the fact that the mournful column of refugees, whose sounds he could still hear through the trees, had very obviously not been attacked. Perhaps the kraan and giaks were saving them for later, or perhaps Zagarna was consolidating his current conquests before striking out at the rest of Sommerlund. Mercifully Trimis fainted when Lone Wolf cut through the remaining tissue to sever the soldier's arm, just above the elbow. Sweat sprang from all the pores of the man's body. He stayed unconscious while Lone Wolf placed his red-hot axe blade against the stump in order to cauterize the wound; as the blood and flesh sizzled and popped, Lone Wolf himself flirted with unconsciousness, but luckily he was able to cling to reality. He gagged at the smell of burnt meat, but he forced himself to continue holding the red-hot axe blade to the wound until he was satisfied that it was safe from any possible infection.

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He was relieved that Trimis was still unconscious when it came to setting the broken leg. The task of splinting up the limb was a fairly simple one: even the youngest Kai acolyte had learnt how to apply a splint using only the materials available from nature. But the problem of resetting the bone was rather more difficult. He ascertained that it was only the femur which had been shattered -the tibia and fibula were, miraculously, still intact. He put one foot in Trimis's groin and pulled hard on the leg. The flesh of the thigh stretched sickeningly, to the point where Lone Wolf had horrific images of pulling the leg right off. Contorting himself into a half-kneeling, half-squatting position, his back to the soldier's torso, he was able to ease the two splintered ends of bone back together. As soon as he'd done so he splinted the thigh up, using straight branches and some of the string he'd discovered in Trimis's emergency pack. He used more of the string to help construct a rudimentary crutch out of a couple of branches. He'd almost finished working on this when Trimis recovered consciousness. "Eyes of Ishir!" the soldier exclaimed. "Next time I think I'll choose the sawbones. Your Kai healing hurts more than a rat eating a man's belly. Met this giant rat, once, in . . ." "It's done, now," said Lone Wolf. "That's the trouble," said Trimis. "Feel like I've been chewed up by a kraan: spat out, jumped up and down on . . . I was in less pain before you 'cured' me." He looked at the stump of his arm and fainted again. There was very little more Lone Wolf could do to help him. He should already have been heading for the Alema Bridge, to join Pelathar's army and add his meagre assistance to the fight against the Darklands spawn. He put the makeshift crutch beside Trimis's good arm and refilled the soldier's flask with water. On impulse, he scrambled to the road and intercepted a woman who was dreamily trudging along with her son and daughter; it was all too evident that she had lost a husband and the children a father. Swiftly he explained to her that there was someone in the forest who needed her help; her eyes were dull pebbles as he spoke, and he was uncertain as to how much of all this she was taking in, but she docilely followed him, as did the children. "He's unconscious at the moment," said Lone Wolf. The family looked down at Trimis's bruised and tattered body. "He should wake up soon. When he does, treat him kindly. He's a brave man, in his way, and he was injured

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while fighting to try to save you from -- from . . ." He waved his hand to indicate the misery that was this part of Sommerlund. The woman was still reacting like a zombie; Lone Wolf could sense the nightmares that lurked behind her eyes and something of her screaming nightmares. In the last twenty-four hours she had seen sights she had never imagined to be even possible. Before her eyes, her husband, whom she had loved dearly, despite the gossip in the inn, had been torn limb from limb by slavering doomwolves, cheered on by their giak riders. What the giaks had then done to her, in front of the children, had obliterated the remains of her mind. But she numbly accepted Lone Wolf's instructions: if he'd told her to go and hang her children from the forest's tallest tree she'd probably have been just as obedient. The children recognized this. They reassured Lone Wolf that Trimis would be safe in their hands, that as soon as he recovered consciousness they would help him up onto his crutch and guide him to join the long line of refugees. He pressed some of the money he'd found in the tunnel into their hands -- perhaps it would be of use to them as they escorted the hobbling soldier southwards. They were of an age where they thought what had happened to their father and mother had been rather fascinating -- oh, sure, they missed their papa, but they were sublimely confident that he would reappear tomorrow, hearty and hale like he'd always been. With doubts still tugging at his mind, Lone Wolf left the family standing around the soldier's broken figure. He'd done his best for Trimis; he'd spent far too long saving (he hoped) a single life when he should have been making his best speed to join Pelathar. He ran off through the forest in the direction which Trimis had indicated. His axe clasped firmly in his right hand, he was no longer a healer: he was a warrior. He felt all of the martial instincts of the Kai flowing through his arteries. He was a predatory animal, now. He was a wolf. And he was hunting for prey. 4 From the west came an ancient and broken magician, mounted on an incongruously beautiful horse. In his wake there trailed a sad-looking giak, its grey-green face covered in hideous misery. It was tied around its arms and its torso with strong bonds of rope. The sun was high overhead and the

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giak flinched in the face of the strong rays. The magician was clearly someone who should have been pensioned off long ago, the Toran guards opined to each other as the miserable little trio approached the city's gates. His horse might be worth a few crowns, and it'd be fun to cause the giak great pain during its voyage to the shores of death, but the magician himself would have to be received into the city with all due honour. They'd never seen this old fool before, with his crooked back and his oddly compelling eyes, but they recognized the star-studded blue robe which he wore. Perhaps, like a few others of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, he was an eremite who had spent long years fasting and meditating in the wilderness. Now he had captured a giak and was bringing it home for questioning by the Guildmaster. His back was as twisted as a shepherd's staff, his visage as bleak as a glacier descending a fiord. The sentinels let him into Toran without question. They could now vaguely recall having seen that face before, although they were damned if they could have put a name to it. They didn't much like his eyes, which seemed to hide red flames behind a mask of chill steel, but then it was none of their business to act upon their preferences or prejudices about the various allegiates of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star who came into the city. The giak was pitiful in its misery. Doubtless it would be dead by morning: the Guildmaster was customarily merciful, but even his mercy failed to extend itself to the vile, sadistic creatures spawned by Zagarna in the dungeons of Helgedad. The guards permitted themselves fantasies about the kinds of torture to which they would put the miserable, shivering creature. One of them made so bold as to offer to help the magician out in this respect, and was astonished at the forthrightness of the rejection. 5 Vonotar found his return to Toran traumatic. This was the city where he'd lived since his memories began, the place where he'd been reared according to the lore of the Left Hand Path. Through the city's narrow streets he'd run as a child; later, as an acolyte, he had walked through them with his books tucked under his arm, feeling himself immaturely superior to the street-traders who scuttled out of his path. In other days he had regarded himself as a certain successor to the post of Guildmaster, and had looked upon the common citizens with lofty contempt. In moments of introspection he'd realized that this contempt might be the

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single reason why he had been barred from Guildmastership. Somewhere along the line he'd lost his sense of compassion: there was nothing, now, that he could do about this. Except, perhaps, destroy the city which had given him succour for so many years. He surrendered Allia to the stable-boys and, out of habit, dragged Carag to the cubicle which, long ago, the magician had inhabited when he was still the heir apparent to the Guildmaster's throne. The room looked even grimmer than he had remembered it: the hard cot and even harder stone floor. Surreptitiously he returned to the stables, formed an appropriate thought, and returned to his cell with a struggling miniaturized Allia in one of the pockets of his robe. He was glad that neither he nor Carag was expected to sleep much this night. Their task was to stay awake and launch an assault from within at the moment when the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star was straining its resources to the utmost to repel the attack from without. Vonotar lit a candle. This was to be the first of three. When the third candle burnt down he could expect the assault of Zagarna's crude forces to begin. At some point in the near future he must set in action the various processes which would lead to the Darklord's death: Zagarna was becoming an embarrassment -- and a likely obstruction to Vonotar's dreams of ruling Magnamund and spreading the doctrine of Evil to all corners of the world. Carag was fast asleep as the first candle guttered and died. The giak had little conception as to the nature of such notions as "past" and "future", but Vonotar had reassured him that, in the time that was to come, there would be plenty of opportunity for slaughter. Carag enjoyed slaughter. He'd been bred to it. He found the screams of babies as they were hacked to pieces a matter for hilarity and a certain measure of eroticism. A long time ago, as he'd been given his rudimentary education in the dungeons of Helgedad, he'd been taught that mindless brutality was the task of any giak. Occasionally he wondered about this dictum, but he soon banished such heretical thoughts from his mind: his intelligence was not of the highest order, and his overriding prerogative was to obey. He shifted uneasily in his sleep. The second candle died. Vonotar had found himself, too, edging unwillingly towards sleep, but the death of the second candle brought him fully awake. From its stub he lit the wick of the third and final candle. The flame was at first unwilling, but within moments it had caught, spreading its flickering yellow-orange light to

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the furthest corners of the cell. He shook Carag awake. "Be prepared, my little friend. Very soon now you'll be warring with humans. They have magic, but it's nothing like as great as the magic which you've seen me perform. Your sword has a lot of killing to do." "Killing . . . I like . . . killing. Good . . . killing?" said the giak sleepily. "Oh, yes," said Vonotar, "very good killing." 6 Out of the darkling sky came Zagarna's hordes, screaming and cackling and shrieking. The kraan flew wingtip to wingtip, each of them surmounted by a shrilling giak, in the frenzy of its bloodlust hissing notes far higher than the human ear can hear. The Darklord himself remained in Kaag, not so much despite Vonotar's instructions as because of them: Zagarna had found himself unable to stomach the notion of taking orders, especially from a mortal, however considerable that mortal's magical powers. There were limits to the Darklord's tolerance. This was one of them. The sentinels at the gates of Toran were the first to see the great cloud of flying forms spreading from the west to cover half the sky. They shouted the alarm and rang repeatedly the great tocsin by the main gateway. People stumbled out into the streets, screaming, barging into each other and panicking. Some had the presence of mind to seize weapons with which to defend themselves, their friends and their families, but most simply went mad with fear. No one could remember the last time the great bell had been rung, but all of them knew the significance of its ponderous chimes: the city, their city, after all these years of half-expectation, was finally under siege. Some were still in their night attire; others had clambered clumsily into day clothes. The streets were a mass of moving colours and shapes. However, the vast flock of kraan did not plunge towards the city, as the archers who had hastily manned the battlements had assumed they would. Instead, they formed a great circular mass, high aloft, far beyond arrow-shot, directly overhead. For some minutes they hovered there, their distantly heard cacklings and cawings striking terror into the citizens' hearts. Then the black cloud of kraan lit up. Thousands upon thousands of rag bundles soaked in giak oil were set ablaze and held ready by the kraan's durable claws. At a command from a vordak riding astride the colossal shape of an

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imperial zlanbeast, the flaming bundles were dropped towards the city. It was like a hailstorm, but with flames in place of hailstones. The first to die was a young man, his hair erupting into a screen of fire. He clutched his head and screamed, running blindly in search of he knew not what, desperate to run away from the pain. He barged his way through the wall of his fellow-citizens; like him, they were screaming in terror. In agony, he threw himself into a well, seeking the coolness of the water. Relief came to him when his neck broke as his falling body crashed against the wall of the well. Many of the houses of Toran had thatched roofs, and these went up like tinder. People who had somehow managed to sleep through the pealing of the emergency bell were incinerated in their beds. Others who sought refuge in their homes met a similar fate. Flames sprang through latticed windows as if inspired by an infantile caprice. The soldiers of Toran were impotent to repel the attack. The assailants were out of range of even the most powerful of archers. Thwarted, the guards and the militia could do nothing more than the rest of the populace -flee from the thousands of fires which had sprung up all over the city. The Old Quarter, where most of the non-Guild members had lived, became a column of fire, and cool air from the surrounding countryside rushed in to feed the flames still further. The noise of the conflagration drowned even the screams of the dying. Mercifully, most people expired of suffocation in the cloying smoke before the flames could reach them; others, though, died in the extremes of agony as their bodies were consumed by the fire. Some staggered out of the hell that was the Old Quarter, their clothes and hair ablaze, only to find themselves confronted by the lesser fires raging in the rest of the city. The buildings of the Guilds went relatively unscathed during the first attack, but the fluttering kraan above launched a second wave of flaming bundles towards the city, targeting them specifically towards the Guildhouses. The building of the Guild of Demolitionists exploded, scattering stones, fabrics, blazing planks and shards of human flesh over a wide area; the flames had reached the inflammable materials stored in its secret vaults. Several of the pieces of burning wood shattered the windows of the building belonging to the Guild of Costermongers, and within seconds flames were leaping in its halls and corridors. Some of its allegiates died as, in desperation, they leapt from high windows in an attempt to escape the heat; a few brave firefighters struggled to quell the flames, throwing water from wooden buckets, but their efforts had little effect and they too died in

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the orange heat and the foul black smoke. The flag of Toran, black with eight white crosses, which had for generations hung above the battlements, crumpled into flames and fell upon the screaming, struggling citizens below. Its abrupt collapse and destruction symbolized the death of the city. One by one, the other Guild buildings were captured by the eagerly licking flames. Glass melted and ran; stout granite stones glowed and darkened in the heat. The guards threw open the city's main gate and there was a surging exodus of survivors, maimed and fire-blackened though many of them were. Women and children were trampled underfoot by people who, until a few hours before, had been their friends. Out in the countryside, many of the escapees were fastidiously picked off by swooping kraan. Only a very few avoided these predators to be able, in later years, to tell of the fate which had befallen the once-proud Toran. A further influx of air made the inferno even more torrid. Little flames were whipped into major conflagrations, the fire blazing blue rather than orange. Running people caught by the fire were burned to a crisp in instants. The stables of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star erupted in a mighty gout of flame, and the tethered horses shrieked their agonies as the fire leapt from their straw to devour them. The ostlers had long since fled; the horses had no chance of escape. The diamond star that had for centuries floated lazily spinning above the Guild building crashed down onto its roof, shattering in the heat into a billion sharp fragments. Waves of flame leapt down the city's narrow streets, consuming all that came in their way. The bottles of liquor in the city's many taverns exploded and their contents blazed bluely. Walls collapsed, burying under tons of broken stone those who had sought their illusory shelter. The building belonging to the Guild of Merchants fell in on itself, rather gracefully, like a card-player deciding that the hand he's been dealt has no chance of winning. Two parts of the city of Toran seemed to stand aloof from the fiery destruction. The semi-sentient walls were able to extinguish any fires which erupted near to them: they directed their hostility towards the flames, which abruptly shrivelled and disappeared. The other area of Toran to be unaffected was that surrounding the great building belonging to the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. The star might have fallen, but the building still stood. This is not to say that the magicians of the Guild were idly divorcing themselves from the struggle.

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Far from it. Within the seemingly unperturbed walls there was an even greater battle raging. 7 Banedon had walked all night. His wet clothes had leached the warmth from his body, and he was shivering as he approached Toran. He saw the hovering circle of kraan. He saw the tower of smoke standing high above the city, its uppermost end streaming away to join the clouds. He saw the flood of refugees being attacked by pouncing kraan and the giaks who rode on their backs. He saw all of these things, and more. But most of all he saw his own failure. He had been sent to warn the Kai Monastery of Vonotar's defection, but he had been too late. Now he had journeyed to help his Guild battle with the forces of the Darklord Zagarna, but once again he'd arrived too late. He pictured his friends dying in the flames; and misery, compounded by deep guilt, filled his mind. He fell to the mossy ground and beat it with his fists.

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5 The Brotherhood of the Crystal Star 1 In the Great Hall of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star the Guildmaster looked depressedly at the collection of Elders he had requested to congregate. They were diverse in many ways -- male and female, pale- and darkskinned -- but all of them shared a single characteristic: age. Some had already ventured so far into the hinterland of the passing decades that the term "senility" was a euphemism. He recognized that this was his own fault -- indeed, that much of the responsibility for Zagarna's incursion into Sommerlund could be laid at his own door. Had he been more zealous about assisting younger magicians to attain higher levels within the Guild, and had he been a little more ruthless about forcing the most incapable of the Elders to retire, perhaps Vonotar might not have been tempted to flee westward to the Darklands in order to discover the secrets of the Nadziranim. The Guildmaster pulled his fingers through his long beard The gesture was an affectation of his. "My friends in the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star," he said, "Toran is under siege. We can't do very much to save the people of the city, but it's our duty to preserve our Guild. The Kai have been utterly annihilated, so only our Left Hand magic stands between the Darklord Zagarna and the ultimate conquest of Sommerlund." He realized as he spoke them that the words were pompous and overly selfconscious. Still, he had little choice but to plough on. "It's likely that one of the entities flying high above Toran at this very moment is Vonotar, who was until lately among the most valued allegiates of our Guild. I know that he has combined within his soul our Left Hand ways of thought with the vile Right Hand magic of the Nadziranim. He is now possibly the most powerful magician this world has ever known . . . and sadly his loyalties are now to our foe from the Darklands. I suggest we call together not just ourselves but every single member of the Brotherhood, down to the lowliest acolyte, in order to repel the magical assault which Vonotar must surely soon launch upon us." The Elders chattered in dimwitted confusion. They'd lived long lives in order to attain their preeminence, and they saw little reason now to admit other members of the Guild as their equals.

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The Guildmaster allowed them to protest for a little while and then snapped his fingers together. The abrupt noise silenced the Elders. Seated on his lap, the Guildmaster's pet kitten, Grey One, raised an ear in inquiry before settling back to sleep. The Guildmaster wished that the majority of his Council of Elders could see their way to doing much the same. His new kitten -- the one which he'd shaped from a helghast -- slumbered with equal equanimity in a corner of the hall. "Decisions," he said, "in this chamber are generally put to the vote. I'm not vain enough to think that, just because I'm Guildmaster to the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, my opinions are always correct. Nevertheless, in this instance I've decided in advance to overrule you should you reject my request. I can save a lot of valuable time by deciding to cut out the debating stage and simply adopt the stratagem I've decided upon." This sent the Elders off into another fit of frenzied burbling. For a Guildmaster to state in advance that he would overrule the rationally debated decision of the Elders was something unheard-of, dangerously approaching heresy. "There are flames," said the Guildmaster, "licking around this very room. We don't have time for idle chatter." The Elders continued to discuss the matter. The Guildmaster lost all patience. "Guards!" he called, and an uneasy collection of men appeared at the chamber's doorways. "Escort these people to the dungeons. They've outlived their usefulness in more ways than one." To their horror, the Elders were led away. Some attempted to put up a fight, but they were rapidly pacified by the guards. Most accepted their fate meekly: if the building were to be razed to the ground, as they generally expected, there were worse places to be than in the clammy and fireproof dungeons beneath it. Now that the Great Hall was empty the Guildmaster found himself breathing heavily. He believed implicitly in the abilities of the more minor members of his Guild. Earlier today he had seen the latent magic of Banedon, whom he had always regarded as one of the least promising of all the acolytes. For several years he had underestimated the powers of Vonotar -- the folly of this was now painfully obvious to him. They came to the Great Hall in their torrents. The most striking of them all was a red-headed woman, near to seven feet tall, whose every movement echoed magic; around her figure there was an aura composed of greenish-grey sparklingness. The Guildmaster cursed himself for not having

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noticed her before: clearly she had more magic in her little finger than his entire council of Elders put together. She spat raw magic from her every appendage; her fingers and toes were foci for blue and gold flames which spurted out to all corners of the Great Hall. But there were other magicians of almost equal power. The ten-yearold child over there was capable of altering reality so that it became as malleable as putty in his hands. An ancient crone who should long ago have been elected an Elder on the grounds of age alone was catching handfuls of air and moulding them into small animals; she was insane, and had been for many years, but it was possible she could strike several severe blows against the magical onslaught which the Guildmaster expected from Vonotar. Grey One decided the time was ripe for waking up. The kitten uncurled its body and hauled itself to its feet; it arched its back, its tail swinging pointlessly from side to side, and kneaded its claws painfully into the Guildmaster's thigh. The kitten looked lovingly up at the face of its master, and by way of reward was tickled behind the ears. The Guildmaster didn't notice when the cat's eyes changed from steely grey-blue to dirty orange, when its face crumpled. One moment Grey One was nothing but a kitten; the next it was inhabited by a soul which had usurped it. Grey One's nascent mind attempted to resist this incursion, but it was only a kitten: certainly it was no match for a magician as powerful as Vonotar had become. "We resist," said the Guildmaster, pushing himself to his feet, shuffling the kitten away off his lap, "the invasion of the forces of the Darklord Zagarna. Our weapons are few. All we've got are our minds . . . and our magic." The light of the many blazing fires that were destroying Toran shone angrily through the stained-glass windows, colouring the mosaic floor in unnatural tints. "We must counter the magic of Vonotar . . . which, I fear, is very powerful magic indeed." Deliberately the Guildmaster left off his oratory before it had properly begun. The words were unnecessary. He allowed his mind to spread out over the whole of Magnamund, searching out the places where Vonotar might be hiding. He felt the coldness of Kalte's ice-floes and the heat of Vassagonia's great deserts. His consciousness plunged into the seas east of the Ichordaim Islands and probed the jungle forests of Dessi. He identified himself with the land, and found that it embraced him warmly.

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Yet he could find not a trace of Vonotar. He couldn't believe that the traitor was dead. Zagarna himself didn't have sufficient intelligence to carry out two such dramatically effective raids in as many days. He'd have attacked Toran conventionally, relying on the vast numerical superiority of his troops, caring not a jot for the number of casualties he might incur. No, there was a far shrewder mind at work here, and the Guildmaster knew in his heart that this mind was Vonotar's. But where could the man be? A terrible thought struck the Guildmaster. There was one place he hadn't allowed his mind to roam. The Great Hall itself. Instantly he detected Vonotar's presence. "Guards!" he cried. "Bar the doors at once!" The guards were confused, but they rapidly obeyed the command. The gathered magicians looked at each other in perplexity; their heads moved like a restless sea before the Guildmaster's throne. What was going on? Had age finally deprived the Guildmaster of his senses? "Vonotar is among us," he explained, raising his voice only a little in order to cut through the hubbub. Immediately the room was filled with voices. Each of the magicians looked at his or her neighbours. Most of them had known Vonotar: he'd been a figure of more importance in the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star than were most of the Elders. They searched each other's faces assiduously, but no one could detect the faintest resemblance to the turncoat. The Guildmaster pounded the armrest of his throne, demanding silence. After a few minutes his request was granted. "There's little point in scrutinizing each other," he said, his voice curt and carefully controlled. "Vonotar by now must have absorbed the secrets of the Nadziranim. He will be vastly more powerful than any of us individually. He's perfectly capable of making you see what he wants you to see." He'd intended to calm the assembly down. Instead, his words raised fears even higher. The hubbub began to grow once more, and he had to slap his hands together yet again to impose quiet. "Look around you," he said, "and gather together all the people you know. If anyone's left over, that person may be Vonotar. Or he may be adopting the guise of someone you know, in which case we'll find we have two versions of the same person." The magicians grouped and regrouped under the Guildmaster's

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watchful eye. Minutes passed, and at last all the allegiates were gathered in clumps, all prepared to attest to the identity of the people surrounding them. There was no one left over. One of the guards stepped forward nervously. "Guildmaster," he said, "there's someone missing." "Who?" "Last night a magician came here, bringing a giak he'd captured. I was at the city gates. We let him in. He seemed an amiable enough old buffer, although his eyes didn't smile like his lips did, and he was in Guild robes. But I can't see him now." "Why in the name of Naar did you let him in?" "Well" -- the guard shuffled his feet miserably -- "we sort of recognized him." "Who was he?" "I . . . I don't know. But his face was kind of familiar. None of us could put a name to him but we'd sort of, you know, seen him around." The Guildmaster stared at the man, as did the other magicians. The guard flinched, but carried on. "I know he wasn't Vonotar. He was old, as I say, and his back was bent." "How do you know he wasn't Vonotar? Don't you understand, man, Vonotar is powerful! He can make you see what he wants you to see!" "Well, we didn't . . ." The guard's voice faded off into an incoherent mumble. "And this magician," the Guildmaster said, his voice growing milder, "isn't among the ones you see here." The guard shook his head mutely. "Does anyone know which cubicle he was allotted?" Again the guard shook his head. "Well, in that case can you damned well go and check? It's just possible this wanderer died during the night, or that he's ill, or deaf, or something." Even as he spoke the words the Guildmaster knew that they were nonsense. Vonotar was somewhere in the room -- or, at least, his mind was -- which meant the wizard must have taken over someone else's personality. Whether or not he had transported himself into the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star using the body of the old magician the guards described was an irrelevance. As a pair of the guards retreated the Guildmaster added: "At the same

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time, search the rest of the building. Vonotar has killed before, so it's possible he may have murdered one of our number and be here in that person's guise." Several of the assembled magicians had been noticing something . . . something odd . . . about the behaviour of Grey One, but until now they'd been too much in awe of the Guildmaster's air of majesty to dare interrupt him. Now, though, one of the youngest acolytes -- a lass no more than eleven years old -- plucked up the courage her elders lacked and said, "Guildmaster, look at your kitten." His initial reaction was to disregard the comment as the babbling of a child, but he saw that others around her were likewise staring at the pet with fascination. He spun on his heels and scooped the little creature from the floor. He looked into its eyes and saw the flames burning there. "Vonotar," he hissed. The kitten nonchalantly licked a paw and stared back at him. It gave a smug grin. Yes, Guildmaster, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it. "So! You think I'm powerless, do you?" Yes. I know you are. The kitten was possibly the most precious thing in all the world to the Guildmaster, but he forced himself not to think about this. Before he could have time to consider possible alternatives, he forced himself to take Grey One's head in one hand, the body in the other, and twist firmly. The kitten's neck snapped, and after a brief convulsion it slumped lifelessly. Tears flowing down his cheeks, the Guildmaster threw the pitifully small body into a corner. That was a silly thing to do, Guildmaster, said Vonotar's voice in his mind. Before, you at least knew where I was: now you have no way of knowing. Already I've taken over the body of someone here in this room, but you don't know who it is and you can't kill everybody just on suspicion -besides, I'd only escape to capture somebody somewhere else. And you've destroyed your favourite pet. Do you remember how you once tried to give Grey One to me, in the hope that the creature might persuade me away from the Right Hand Path of the Nadziranim? The Guildmaster remembered only too well. It had been here in this very hall, on the day that Vonotar had murdered an Elder called Loren and fled to the Darklands. Vonotar had refused the gift vehemently.

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It might have been better for the kitten if I'd accepted. I'm sure I wouldn't have slaughtered my own favourite pet with the same ruthlessness as you've just done. "Vonotar," thundered the Guildmaster, aware that the other magicians, unable to hear both sides of the conversation, were looking at him as if he'd taken leave of his senses, "it would be impossible for you to have a favourite pet! To love a creature the way I loved Grey One you need to have at least a measure of the finer human emotions, and you have none." On the contrary, I can show you right now two creatures whom I hold very dear. I would do quite a lot to preserve their lives. Would you like to see my pets? "I don't believe you. I don't think you have in you the capacity for love any longer, Vonotar." Try me. There was the sound of a handclap. The Guildmaster swivelled to see who -- rather, whose body -- might have been responsible, but he was too late. A scream went up as a giak abruptly appeared in the midst of the crowd. Immediately the magicians, pressing back against each other in terror, created a circle of space around it. The beast scowled at them, and swished its sinister black serrated sword viciously through the air, driving them further away. Meet Carag. I'm very fond of Carag. And in his own quaint way, he's very fond of me. Don't you think he's a handsome fellow? "Vonotar, I can destroy giaks with ease. But for the moment let me spare your 'pet' its life." The Guildmaster raised his right palm, and a purple beam of light spun a complicated path through the air to encircle Carag. The little giak abruptly disappeared. Guildmaster, you annoy me. You've destroyed my friend. "No, Vonotar, I haven't. I don't take lives -- even the lives of giaks -with the readiness which you and your allies do. Carag is no longer a part of this universe: I have shunted him into another possible universe, somewhere in the polycosmos where there is no intelligent life for him to slay. But I can bring him back any time I wish." I could do the same. "Yes, you are powerful, Vonotar, but first you'd have to find him. The polycosmos is infinite -- infinite compounded by infinite. Uncountable billions of possible universes have been created every second since the dawn

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of time. You don't know into which of them I've banished your pet." Touché. It was a bitter thought. "Show yourself to me, Vonotar. Bring yourself in front of me in corporeal form so that we can talk to each other like normal mortals. As you so rightly say, it would be pointless of me simply to destroy the body you currently inhabit." The Guildmaster sat down on his throne and waited expectantly. A young woman collapsed. Her fellow magicians gathered around her and pinched her cheeks to restore her to consciousness. Her eyes opened, but behind them there was only the chill nothingness of thousands of light years of empty space. She urinated, staining her robe, and her mouth dribbled. She gave the high-pitched, hopeless wail of a newborn child. "Vonotar, give that woman back to herself," ordered the Guildmaster, his words taut and individually accented. Your wish is my command -- just this once, came Vonotar's mocking voice in his mind. The people gathered around their fallen comrade saw intelligence return to her eyes. She gathered her damp robe around her and began to weep in shame and confusion. 2 The two guards were dragging the corpse of the old magician gloomily back to the Great Hall . . . Whatever the Guildmaster had said, it was clear to them that the fellow had discovered the limits of the term of his natural life during the night and had, as they put it callously to each other, "snuffed it -- lucky old bugger". Still, the Guildmaster probably wouldn't believe their unsupported word on the matter; hence their pointless exercise of lugging the body by its feet along the stone corridors. The first kick went almost ignored. The body must just have hit a bump. The second had the two guards looking at each other in shocked apprehension. They'd been less than respectful in their treatment of what they'd assumed to be a corpse. If indeed the man weren't dead, but had simply been in some sort of deep unconsciousness -- perhaps meditating? -there was the likelihood that they would be in line for severe disciplinary action. Not that that mattered too much at the moment, with the city of Toran blazing all around them, and their lives almost certainly already forfeit. Still

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... "Let go of my feet, you fools," said a rusty voice. Startled, the guards simply let go. There was a thump as the magician's legs hit the floor. "You'll pay for that in due course," said Vonotar, struggling to his feet. This aged body of his creaked in a way that had been totally outside the experience of his earlier form. "On second thoughts, why should I put it off?" He snickered. "Thank you for escorting me so far. I know my way from here, though, so if you don't mind I'll dispense with your services." The guards prepared to flee. "As of now," said Vonotar gently. His eyes flared bluely and the two guards burst into flames. Vonotar ambled past their blazing forms, fighting as they were with hands and garments in a futile attempt to beat down the unquenchable flames, and smiled merrily to himself: of course, he could simply have killed them where they were, but the knowledge of the soulstuff in Zagarna's mind had persuaded him there was pleasure to be derived from the infliction not just of death but of painful death. He relished their screams of agony and terror. It had been a simple little Nadziranim spell, but its results were very satisfying. He considered knocking on the doors of the Great Hall, but then decided simply to melt them with a glare. Wood charred and vanished as it was incinerated at temperatures higher than human understanding could comprehend; molten metal fled in brilliant yellow streams to the low points of the corridor. The heat instantaneously burnt those closest to the doors into columns of ash, which softly and slowly collapsed to the ground. Others within the hall were permanently scarred with the redness of the firefilled ash. Some were blinded by the glare; others lost their sanity. As if he hadn't noticed anything untoward, Vonotar strolled among the heaps of fiery dust littering the floor, a mild smile on his lips, and brushed his way through the mill of screaming survivors to confront the Guildmaster. "You requested my presence in person, oh mighty one?" The sarcasm was, he knew, childish, but at the same time it was irresistible. The Guildmaster, too, showed no signs of shock or even of recognition that so many of the Brotherhood had been slaughtered. He just looked at Vonotar for a long, cool moment, and then said: "That was a juvenile trick, wasn't it, Vonotar?"

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Fury rose within the wizard. Was the man not impressed by his demonstration of power? Why, with a snap of his fingers he could consign this hall and all of its occupants to eternity. Indeed, he . . . One of the apprentice magicians -- a girl with green eyes and closely cropped red hair -- tapped him on the shoulder, and he froze. "First, Vonotar, you promised us something. You said you'd show us your other pet. We've seen Carag. Now let us see Allia -- hmmm?" He'd seen this woman before, but she was taking suitable precautions to make sure he couldn't remember exactly where and when. Without being able to tell himself why he was obeying her, he groped in the pockets of his robe to produce the tiny form of his miniaturized horse. He placed it on the ground and waved his hands. Within moments the full-size mare was standing before them, her fore-hooves clattering on the mosaic floor as she trampled agitatedly. Alyss placed one hand on Vonotar's forehead; he was too startled to move. She placed the other on Allia's shivering brow. She winked one of her green eyes at the wizard, and energy flowed through her slim body. At first Vonotar couldn't sense that anything had changed, but then he realized that his body felt . . . wrong. He tried to raise his hand to brush away Alyss's cool palm, and stumbled badly forwards. He looked down at himself and saw an expanse of grey-white hair. He flicked his glance to his left and saw that Alyss's other hand was touched to the face of a bent old man, whose white hair and beard, lined face and crooked back testified to his antiquity. The man seemed to have lost his wits; his nostrils flared in fear, his eyes were unnaturally wide, and his feet were rhythmically stamping the floor. "That's right, Vonotar," said Alyss with a light laugh. "You've been so keen to take over other people's bodies, I thought it would be a shame if you couldn't enjoy the experience of being Allia for a little while." Vonotar tried to speak, but Allia's throat had not been designed for speech, and all that emerged was an enraged whinny. We can talk to each other this way, as before, thought Alyss, and the words glowed across Vonotar's mind. Suddenly she allowed him to remember their earlier encounter, seemingly high in the skies above the brutal scene of the massacre of the Kai. You! he thought. In the flesh -- for the moment. You didn't think I'd let you kill all of these good folk, now did you? Vonotar, uncomfortable in this unfamiliar body, trembled. He'd been securely confident of his own abilities, and had indeed assumed that, should

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he wish it, he could slaughter everyone present. He'd been planning to strike them all dead . . . with a few exceptions: it had amused him to consider the prospects of keeping the Guildmaster and a few of the others alive as totally subjugated handservants, while a couple of the females were distinctly . . . You wouldn't have been able to kill them anyway, thought Alyss comfortingly. The future doesn't show that. As you know, I can change the future just a little, but you have no powers in that area at all. If you could see the future spread out in front of you, the way I can, you'd realize that any attempt you made to eradicate the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star would be futile, whether I was here or not. Prove it to me, witch! I don't have to prove that or anything else to you, Vonotar. It's a simple matter of fact. It's laid out in the map of the future that the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star will survive your onslaught. Alyss gave him one of her most charming smiles -- one that she'd often practised in the mirror for just such an occasion as this. There are lots of other things the future tells me. One of them is that, very soon, I'll restore you to your rather pitiful human body -- so there's no need to be synthetically polite to me, as you were thinking of being. I hate grovellers. There are a few other bits and pieces that might be of interest to you. Zagarna's days on Magnamund are numbered. But I don't expect you're too terribly worried about that: I know you've been plotting ways to bring about his downfall ever since you realized what a stupid puppet he is. Perhaps you might be intrigued, though, to know that your own death is not too many years away. You'll be destroyed by someone you've to meet -- a slip of a boy. Quite handsome in his own way, she observed with a giggle, but not really my type, if you know what I mean. Vonotar tossed his mane angrily. Why should I believe any of this, witch? Oh, if I were you, Vonotar, I wouldn't ever believe anything I tell you. The truth and I are very good friends, but quite often we agree to differ. However, if you look around you, you'll notice that, aside from myself and your two bodies, there's a singular lack of activity on the part of the rest of the world. That might suggest to you, even if nothing else did, that I'm not exactly without the occasional magical capability. Vonotar obeyed her instructions and saw that indeed the Guildmaster and all the other magicians of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star were motionless, their faces buckled into expressions of astonishment, outrage,

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fear . . . Even the flames visible through the Great Hall's stained-glass windows were frozen statues, their subtle curves elegant against the backdrop of a blazingly blue sky. The only moving things were his human body which, inhabited by the spirit of Allia, was showing all the signs of being ready to bolt, his own foolish, wrong-shaped horse body, and the nimble figure of Alyss, who had leapt up to sit on the pedestal supporting the Guildmaster's throne. She crossed her legs, smoothed her raggedy brown trousers, and put her grooved chin daintily into one tanned hand. The robe of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, which she had adopted for a while, had disappeared. "You see, Vonotar," she said, in normal speech, "I could keep us all here like this forever -- the entire world stilled into a single moment. Then neither side could claim triumph over the other: Good and Evil would be locked motionless in a combat which would never have an outcome. But I'm not going to. For a start . . . well, the truth is simply that I'm not going to. The future tells me that." She switched legs and waved a hand idly. The colour of the walls changed from beige to platinum white. "A little bit of ostentation never did anyone any harm," she muttered. How do you propose to stop me, witch? thought Vonotar furiously. You're rather slow to learn, aren't you, Vonotar? came Alyss's mocking thought. I'd have thought I'd made it pretty clear to you by now. It's not a question of me stopping you in your plans to massacre the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, just as you guided Zagarna's forces to exterminate the Kai. It's the solid weight of future history that's going to stop you. The future has its own inertia, you know. Imagine a lever, poised over a fulcrum. If you push down on the long end, you can shift any weight at all. But you're trying to push down on the short end -- all the millions of years of past history are as nothing compared with the eternity of the future. You can't do it. He snorted. His body was crying out for hay. How do you know that I can't? he thought. Because the fact of the matter is that you won't, that's all. Alyss jumped to her feet and strode lightly across to the window behind the Guildmaster's throne. With a neat punch she shattered a hole in it. She reached through and snapped off the sharp top of one of the frozen flames. Her feet making no sound, she moved agilely to Vonotar's side, and held the fragment of flame directly beneath his nostrils. I would rather like to kill you, Vonotar, she thought. It would give me

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immense pleasure to force you to swallow this, and watch you as you were burnt up from within. Rut unfortunately I can't do that. You see, you've got to live on for a while longer, until someone else puts an end to your miserable life. You won't enjoy it when it happens . . . but, then, if you've got the honesty to look deeply inside yourself, you'll admit you don't much enjoy living, either. He forced himself to keep his head steady, even though the equine instincts of his body were screaming to retreat from the flame. I defy you! Oh, Vonotar, stop being so foolish. Haven't you got the message yet? You can defy me until you're blue in the face -- now there's an interesting idea . . . She wrinkled her nose and smiled brightly. Vonotar was aware, out of the edges of his eyes, that something had changed. The shred of flame had vanished from Alyss's hand. All right, so now you've defied me and you're blue in the face, but you still can't change history. "Future history", I should say. Now, I've got a deal for you. What? According to the future, you and your horse -- oh, yes, and that silly little giak -- leave here and go back to Zagarna, telling him that the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star is indestructible. This isn't to say that it can't be destroyed in the weeks and months to come . . . just that, right at this moment, it's impervious to any magical force you can bring to bear on it. However, as you know, I can tamper with the details of the future, and, if I wanted to, could trap you forever in the body of your horse. This was a lie, but Alyss was accustomed to using lies whenever they suited her: why let the enemy have all the good lies? She shielded off a giggle, so that Vonotar's mind would be unable to sense it. If I restore you and Allia to your rightful bodies, and if you agree to leave this place without harming any more of the Guild's allegiates, I'll protect you from the magic of their wrath long enough for you to leave Toran. On the other hand . . . Vonotar's thoughts were a seething bath of rage. Woman, one of these days I'll -Actually, you won't, but hang onto your delusions of grandeur if they help keep you warm at nights. Can't imagine anyone else wanting to. Now, I've put a proposal to you, and you've got a clear choice: do you accept it or not?

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I . . . I accept. And no cheating? No, no cheating. Alyss was rather disappointed to sense that Vonotar was for once quite sincere. Of course, she had always known that he would be, because that was what the map of future history had told her would happen, but she had sneakily entertained the delightful thought that he might attempt to renege on his side of the agreement and thereby justify her annihilating him. That course of action was marked in on the map as the vaguest of possibilities; and it seemed that it was not to be. All right then, wizard. Suddenly Vonotar was back in his own body. Out of nowhere Carag abruptly appeared; the giak lifted his sword and prepared to slash at the frozen bodies of the magicians. "No, Carag!" Vonotar shouted. "Stop! Right now!" "Why . . . master? Killing . . . fun. Them defenceless." "I'll explain it to you later. Right now we've got to leave here. We've failed in our mission; if we wait here any longer we'll lose our lives, too." "Not . . . just a . . . few of . . . them?" "Not any!" Carag looked at Alyss. She held her thumb to her nose and wiggled her fingers at him. "How . . . about . . . that . . . moving . . . one? Just a . . . girl." "No," said Vonotar with a shudder. "Most certainly not that one." Alyss's wiggling fingers became notes of music which traced a bizarrely merry dirge, swaying from discord to discord. Carag's slow brain got the message that perhaps this frail-looking girl was not the most sensible antagonist to select. He glowered at her as he sheathed his sword. "Flat . . . as board . . . anyway," he muttered resentfully to himself. Vonotar hauled himself up on Allia's back and beckoned Carag to sit behind him. The mare's face was stained an unnatural but rather elegantly selected blue. "You say you can read the future," he said gently to Alyss, "but there are mistakes in many books. Even when there aren't, people are quite capable of misreading things in the clearest of print, you know." "I know," said Alyss with a grin, "and that's why the very finest detail of the future is so unpredictable. The gods themselves can misread some of the book they've written. But the plot as a whole stays the same; all the important parts of it are quite immutable. Naar, to whom you've stupidly

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sworn your allegiance -- Naar knows this as well as any of the other gods. But he thinks he can act to change things. Well . . . folly isn't the sole preserve of human beings." "Who are you?" said Vonotar after a short pause. "I'm . . . no, you'll find out before you die. There's plenty of time yet. A little curiosity will add a certain je ne sais quoi to your days -- such of them as are left." Vonotar slumped his shoulders. Almost infinite power was his, now that the magic of the Nadziranim had become fused within him to the thought-tracks of Left Hand magic. He should have had the whole of Magnamund kneeling in subservience at his feet, and yet . . . and yet . . . this witch stood in his way. His eyes burned blue with hatred for her, but at the same time he admitted in his heart that he could never, on his own, defeat her. The fact that his powers were sufficient to ensure a stalemate with her in any confrontation was small consolation. And he had the unnerving sense that she was right in telling him that his future was bleak and his death approaching. For just a second he regretted his actions of the past few days. But then he felt the delirious enchantment of Evil flowing through him, and he knew that he was fated to fight by Zagarna's side even if that course of action led to his own destruction. "We'll see each other again," he promised, his voice hardly more than a whisper. "Perhaps then I'll be able to teach you a little humility." "'Humility'," remarked Alyss casually, "is one of the least-used words in my vocabulary. Thank you for reminding me of it. It's quite pretty, as words go." Slowly Allia bore Vonotar and Carag through the static crowd of magicians, through the frame where once had hung the imposing doors of the Great Hall, and along the spacious stone corridor. The bodies of the two guards who had so roughly manhandled Vonotar's empty body were caught in an instant of pain, their faces silent screams of agony as motionless flames devoured their flesh. Outside the building of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star the city of Toran was similarly silent. Far above, huge numbers of kraan were poised in impossible configurations; some had just dropped fire-bombs, which hung suspended in the air. People were statues, running from the flames or attempting to douse them. The flames themselves were bad]y drawn orangered caricatures of rugged mountains. The hush pressed in on him as Vonotar guided the mare through the stone-like forms. As he entered the tunnel that led through the forty-yards-thick walls to

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Toran's main gateway he cast a look back over his shoulder. In the unnatural light of this silent world the building occupied by the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star was illuminated by an unearthly radiation. He could see Alyss's presence there, as clearly as if she were standing directly before his eyes. Then he turned his head forward again, allowing Allia to plod her careful way out of the city of Toran.

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6 Alema Bridge 1 Consciousness returned with a roar to the Guildmaster. A young woman whom he didn't recognize was standing in front of him. She spoke softly to him, and he had difficulty distinguishing her words against the background din -- the shouts of the magicians inside the hall and the vicious crackling of the voracious flames directly outside its windows. "If you try to quench the blaze by magical means," she was saying, "you'll surely fail. No" -- she raised a hand as he struggled to speak -- "don't bother asking me how I know this. I just do. I've been expending a lot of effort preserving you and your Guild from Vonotar, so the least you can do in return is take my word for things. You've got plenty of buckets and plenty of water: use them. Some of the more fastidious of your number may object to getting their hands dirty, but better dirty that burnt alive -- hmmm?" "What's going on? Where's Vonotar?" "Vonotar is well beyond the walls of Toran by now -- there's no way you can catch him. You'll . . ." She crumpled her face for a moment, concentrating. "Yes, you'll see him again before he dies. Right now, though, the most important thing is for you and the rest of the Guild to fight the flames." She tossed her head, as if until recently her hair had been long and flowing, and the corners of her mouth quirked up. "Oh, yes, and by the way, a little present for you. Put it down to the fact that I'm ridiculously sentimental about young animals -- human or otherwise." She gestured towards the corner, and the Guildmaster's gaze followed her direction. Somewhat unsteadily, Grey One tottered out of the shadows. The kitten looked around, decided that everything was all right with the world, sat down and, with a swish of its tail, began to scratch energetically at the back of one ear. Despite the gravity of the situation, the Guildmaster felt himself smiling. He looked up to thank Alyss, but of course by now she was gone. 2

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In her timeless serenity Ishir gazed upon the world of Magnamund and saw the tide of darkness flooding across Sommerlund. The sight stirred no emotions in her, for the minds of the gods are such that there is no place for human foibles like emotion. So passion played no part in her thoughts as she watched the battle raging between Good and Evil; it was a war which she was virtually certain she would one day win, and thus even this apparent reverse could be nothing more than a temporary setback. She heard the wailing sound of thousands upon thousands of souls departing their bodies: she acknowledged it with a mild interest, but nothing more. She focused her mind on those people on Magnamund whom she regarded in some cold way as being precious to her. Perhaps, if they did what she hoped they would do, this might indeed turn out to be her last battle against Evil, as personified by Naar. The young man who had survived the massacre of the Kai -- right now he was heading inexorably and, perhaps worse, enthusiastically towards danger; it crossed Ishir's vast, cold mind that maybe she could flex reality just enough to dissuade him from his planned course, but she rejected the notion. It is not permitted for the gods to intervene directly in the affairs of humans. The other boy, the rather immature little magician, was currently safe, giving way to his insecurities by weeping over the conflagration of his home city. She knew somewhere within her that he was essential to her plans should this indeed be the era when Naar would be driven back from Magnamund, but at the same time she despaired of him. Perhaps there would come a time when he would reach adulthood, but just at the moment it seemed a long way off. As for Alyss -- well, Alyss was . . . uncontrollable. Until recently Ishir hadn't realized that Alyss existed at all, which was curious, because Ishir, like the other gods, was constantly aware of all that was happening on the infinite worlds of Aon. Yet now Alyss was not only present but an old and trusted friend of Ishir's -- an entity familiar to her since time had first emerged from the funereal abyss of non-time. She recognized that Alyss was in some important respects herself, Ishir, but this didn't ease her discomfiture: it was not right for entities to come into Aon and to have always been there. She could remember all of the deeds that Alyss had done through the billions of years of Aon's existence as clearly as if they had occurred only hours ago, but her mind refused to accept them as anything other than false realities. The worst part of it all was

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that she had no idea whose side Alyss was on. The entity had, so far, acted to assist Ishir's other agents on Magnamund -- Lone Wolf and Banedon -- and to confound Zagarna and Vonotar, but all of this might be a blind. It was possible Alyss was in actuality an avatar of Naar, deceptively seducing Ishir's adherents, and, indeed, Ishir herself, into a sense of complacency before turning to make the kill. Ishir was not pleased by being unable to understand something -- one could almost say that she resented the experience, in her own indescribable, emotionless way. She had heard the music which once upon a time Alyss had played to Banedon, and it had sparked feelings within her for the first time in all-time. She had discovered to her astonishment that there were parts of her mind which she had never before known were there. And she'd found something else that had hitherto been totally alien to her: the notion of wit. If a god can be said to smile, Ishir had smiled sometimes at Alyss's antics. She reached out her consciousness and found that of Alyss, which welcomed her presence. I don't really trust you, although you say you're my friend, thought Ishir. That's not a very nice thing to say, came Alyss's voice tartly. How would you feel if I said that to you? A bit fed up, huh? The gods do not eat; even less do they become -- the thought was carefully chosen -- fed up; as you so vulgarly put it. Sorry, but you caught me at a bad moment. Even at the best of times it's unpleasant to stay for too long in a human body -- although this one's an extremely good one, even if I say so myself. The next time you design a species of new beings you could do a lot worse than take a few tips from me. Little friend, even the other gods dare not speak to me with your impertinence. What makes you think you have the right to spit and hiss at me in this way? Alyss's response was a mental raspberry, and Ishir's mind was jolted. I could destroy you, wherever you are, thought the goddess. Perhaps you ought to learn to show a little courtesy. Oh, I don't think I have to, thought Alyss airily. If you haven't yet realized the extent of my power, it's about time you did. You could no more destroy me than I could destroy you. I don't think that, right now, there's any presence in Aon that could harm me in any way . . . except, maybe, Vonotar. I'll need your help to keep him at bay. How do I know I should be helping you at all?

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How do you know you shouldn't? Goddess, you're my best friend and all that, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da, but you're becoming tedious in your old age. Ishir was perplexed. She was unused to arguments from entities whom she considered to be inferior to herself. Forget this squabble, thought Alyss, appeasingly. Let's be friends, and pretend this never happened. All right . . ., thought Ishir dubiously. But I'm still not convinced I can trust you. Oh, you can trust me, all right. You can trust me to be myself. 3 He was running through the forest as if it were plain ground. His tongue was lolling out of his mouth, as he felt the spirit of the wolf after which he had been named occupy his body and his mind. He was hunched forwards, his hands, holding his axe and sword, almost scraping the low-growing grasses and mosses. The sounds of battle were vividly glowing colours in his brain. All the frustrations and griefs of the past few days coalesced within him to form a naked bloodlust. He desired, with a yearning so profound that he hardly dared acknowledge its presence, to spill the blood of those who'd stolen away the souls of all whom he'd regarded as his friends. Most of all, he wanted to bring about the death of the magician who'd killed his old tutor, Storm Hawk; but the urge was almost equally strong within him to slaughter giaks, kraan, zlanbeast, gourgaz, doomwolves . . . any of the spawn of the Darklord. All of them had contributed to the slaughter of the people among whom he'd spent most of his life. His desire for vengeance was almost more than his body could contain. Rain scurried from the skies and blurred his vision. He shook it angrily from his face. He was close to the battle now. He could almost smell the sick stench of fresh blood. He certainly could smell the vile odour of the green-grey ichor of the Darklord's spawn. It stank like an opened sewer. He was on the scene of the battle before he realized it. He heard his shrill scream of glee as his axe plunged deep into the head of a giak, spilling the creature's rudimentary brains all over the blood- and ichor-soaked grass. Almost without thinking, he spitted another giak on the sword clutched in his left hand; the spawn screeched and died as he twisted the blade. Then they were all around him. A serrated sword drew a red line across his forehead. Its owner looked

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sadly startled as Lone Wolf's sword cleaved its head from its body; the head rolled away and tripped a giak whose spear had been directed straight towards Lone Wolf's heart. He knew almost nothing amid the clamour of battle. The noise was deafening. He was blind in the ecstasy of his bloodlust. He felt his sword and his axe cut through giak and kraan flesh. His clothing was a mess of spurted ichor. Blood flowed into his eyes, and for a moment he was blinded. He wiped the blood away with the back of his hand. He dropped to his knees and swept his sword in a wide circle. Giaks screamed shrilly as they were lopped off below the knees. Even without the power to walk, they inched their way towards him, serpent-wise, their sharp crooked teeth glistening as they sought to destroy him He leapt to his feet and slashed at them with his axe, dancing agilely as he struck them, at the same time parrying off the next wave of Zagarna's foul spawn. There were others fighting as bravely and as ruthlessly as he was. He could see through the tangle of lashing bodies the uniforms of the soldiers of Prince Pelathar's army. They were dying in their hundreds, but for every one who fell ten giaks died. They were defending the tall, prematurely greyhaired figure of Pelathar, the only son of King Ulnar. Many of them screamed in their death agonies, but while they lived to fight they made no noise other than grunts of effort as they consigned Zagarna's spawn to oblivion. A scream filled the sky. A zlanbeast had been struck by an arrow loosed by one of Pelathar's archers, and its pierced body was tumbling towards the ground. Astride it rode a gourgaz; the reptile's mouth gaped as it wailed its lonely panic. Zlanbeast and gourgaz were shattered as they crumpled into a rocky hillock, crushing beneath them warriors from both armies. Lone Wolf dodged about nimbly, the tip of his sword removing a kraan's throat so that the beast bleated its last in a convulsion of pain. At the same time, he swung his axe around his head so that it sank sickeningly into the breast of a gourgaz, burying itself to the hilt. The creature spun away from him, almost ripping the axe from his hand; he shoved a foot firmly into its midriff, wrenching the axe clear. An arrow whistled past his head, and he would have died had not some instinct told him to duck down low. He used the opportunity to unsheathe his dagger and rip upwards as he came to his feet, spilling the repugnant viscera of a giak.

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Everything was confusion and noise. There were the shrill screams of humans and the even shriller ones of Zagarna's spawn. Lone Wolf lost count of the bodies through which his sword and his axe had cut their way. For a long time now the blood had been pouring from the wound in his forehead into his eyes, so that the whole of the world was to him nothing more than a red haze; nevertheless, his body moved almost like that of a dancer as he stabbed and hacked his way further and further towards the centre of the battlefield. The Alema Bridge was an unremarkable edifice of stone: looked at in this respect it had no importance whatsoever. Yet the little stone bridge was much more important than it seemed. It spanned a tributary of the River Unoram, which presented a major obstacle to the land advance of Zagarna's armies towards Holmgard. Pelathar, having real]zed that Sommerlund had been invaded, had marshalled his ill prepared army at this place, confident that, if he could repel the forces of Darkness here, his country would be safe. In fact, the opposing armies had seized upon the bridge as a symbol, giving it an importance far beyond its real strategic value. Whoever captured the bridge would gain a significant moral advantage. The fighting was all the more pitiless and brutal for this. A lull gave Lone Wolf the chance once again to mop the blood from his eyes. At last he could see the foe. But there was little by way of human intelligence in his mind: instead, his whole body was flooded with the most primitive instincts, those dictating that he kill the enemy. He was no longer a human being, he recognized in one of his few lucid moments; his motives were entirely that of the wolf, and his sole desire was to slay. A backhand blow from a giak's blade would have cut him in two had it not been for the way that his reflexes jerked his body clear of its whistling path. He responded by crushing the giak's skull with the flat of his axeblade. The stench of the battlefield was increasingly overwhelming. The ground was slithery and treacherous beneath him, slick with gore and ichor; the stink of the fluids clogged his nostrils. He noticed, dispassionately, that he was shrieking with the sheer exhilaration of the slaughter. A kraan pounced from the sky and he caught it on the tip of his sword, the blade easily piercing through to where the creature's heart would have been, had it had a heart. It screeched, thrashing uselessly at the bitterly sharp blade, slashing its great bat-wings. Lone Wolf showed mercy: he swung his axe in his other hand, so that the kraan's ponderous head flew from its shoulders.

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It felt to Lone Wolf as if he were working his way through a swamp. His main aim was to join Prince Pelathar, but every time he took a pace forwards he found himself confronted by a spitting, cursing, venomous creature born from the pits of Helgedad. His progress was slow, and eventually he tired of the killing. His sword and his axe were stained greygreen from the ichor of the creatures he'd killed: he felt no pride in his valour, only a growing, deep-seated sickness. Surely there must be something more to this life than mindless carnage? The moment swiftly passed. Rapidly repeated jabs with his sword accounted for two giaks and a kraan; a gourgaz screamed its death agonies as it writhed on the sharp spike of his axe; a drakkar died silently as he punched down with his heel to crush its neck. It was then that he felt his killing instincts move into a plane he'd never before imagined possible. His entire body became like a whirlwind. His left arm wielded the great sword he had taken from the scene of the Kai's massacre. His right swirled his axe, with lethal effect. All about him Zagarna's spawn fell dead or wounded. Within moments he was standing in the centre of clear space. He shouted his joyfulness . . . and then advanced towards where he surmised Prince Pelathar must be. Giaks, kraan and other creatures born out of Vashna's less enjoyable dreams retreated before him. Idly he picked them off, savouring the feeling of power which he derived from his ability to slaughter at will. He realized that if he should once stumble on the slippery footing of corpses he would be dead before he could fall, but the possibility didn't worry him. He felt omnipotent, as if, no matter what the forces ranged against him, he would triumph. Here a giak died; dark ichor spurted from its throat and smeared Lone Wolf's cloak. There a kraan was extinguished, examining with seeming interest the wreckage of its slashed abdomen. Elsewhere another giak lost itself agonizedly into whatever eternity awaits giaks. It was as if Lone Wolf were living in a different world, but had temporarily, hallucinating, allowed himself to play a small part in this one. There was now a definite surrealism about his progress towards the Alema Bridge; he required no conscious effort for his sword, axe or dagger to slay the creatures spawned in Helgedad's dark dungeons. He felt as if someone were guarding him, shielding him from the many thrusts and blows aimed at

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him. It was a fancy. Re realized as much. Another giak died under his blade. Prince Pelathar could not be far away from him now. Perhaps he could . . . 4 But "perhaps" is not one of the gods' favourite words. They see all of the great shambles that is past history in definitive terms: there is no sense in which it can be changed. (Alyss begs to differ, but then Alyss is, of course, Alyss.) The gods see the future as a matrix of likelihoods and possibilities, most of which are not concerned with the ersatz notion of "perhaps". There are, naturally, some certainties and some extreme unlikelihoods; mixed in with these are the probabilities and the remote chances. Most numerous of all, though, are those future events which must occur if the universe of Aon is not to splinter apart, destroyed by a rapidly enlarging mass of internal inconsistencies and self-contradictions. Ishir had been watching Lone Wolf's heroic struggle to reach the side of his prince and fight there, and she knew that his efforts were futile. It was written into the history of the future that Prince Pelathar would lose his life at the Battle of the Alema Bridge. Of course, no mortal could know this; indeed, at this very moment Zagarna's spawn were beginning to feel that the battle was turning against them, and were contemplating retreat. Ishir was totally unaffected by the prospect of Pelathar's imminent death; she was well aware that he was, by his own lights, a good man, a man who had attempted to maintain peace and prosperity in the country of Sommerlund while yet retaining all the rights and privileges to which tradition entitled him. It had never occurred to him that, had he been prepared to forgo some of those rights and privileges, he might have spread a little more happiness among his father's subjects; he was truly a prisoner of his rank, unaware of the wider world of possibilities outside his conventional rote. Ishir knew, too, of his considerable bravery; when he had commanded his father's armies he would never ask even the most junior foot-soldier to take a risk which he himself would not take. His policy had always been to lead from the front. Lone Wolf recognized the Prince from portraits which had adorned the walls of the Monastery. Pelathar was in silver armour, his helmet topped by a crown which framed a small statuette of his emblem, a flying horse. His great white charger was likewise armoured, but it had fallen in the combat

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and was unable, in the melee, to regain its feet. One of Pelathar's legs was trapped under its squirming body, and his sword had been knocked from his grasp. Over him towered the giant form of a gourgaz, its axe poised above its head. Lone Wolf took in the situation instantly. Pelathar's soldiers were separated from their commander by a snarling cordon of giaks and drakkarim, and were unable to go to his help. But Lone Wolf, in a blood frenzy, was prepared to accept no obstacle. The leering skeletal face of a drakkar appeared before him and he sank his axe into its mouth. Two giaks lost their heads, but not before one of them had loosed a wicked black arrow towards the Prince. Lone Wolf heard Pelathar scream in sudden agony as the arrow struck his side, piercing through one of the joints of his armour. A kraan darted down to attack Lone Wolf from yet another direction. It met cold steel in the shape of his sword, which ripped it open from throat to abdomen. Squalling, it flopped on top of a party of giaks, blindly lashing out with its sharp claws, tearing three of them to pieces and muffling the efforts of the rest to pull themselves clear. Now the cordon was broken, and Lone Wolf stood at Pelathar's head. The Prince was severely wounded, bright red blood trickling freely from his mouth. Still the gourgaz stood there, axe on high, its yellow-and-black scaly eyes looking with relish at this intruder. Its forked tongue darted in and out of its mouth as it evaluated Lone Wolf's slight, youthful form. A minor distraction to be enjoyed before the death of Pelathar. The great axe swung downwards in an air-splitting arc. And struck ground. Lone Wolf had dodged adroitly sideways. With a backhand swipe of his sword he raked a slash across the huge creature's abdomen. Blood oozed from the wound. The creature roared in its pain and its fury. Pelathar's troops were attacking the cordon of giaks and drakkarim with renewed vigour. For the moment, at least, Lone Wolf was safe from assault in that direction. The gourgaz tore at the ground with its powerfully clawed feet. Its gnarled lips pulled back to reveal two lines of pointed, stained teeth and its whipping cleft tongue. It swung its axe directly towards Lone Wolf's throat. He ducked under the blade, but only just. His hood was knocked back onto his shoulders. The wrench almost threw him to the ground.

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The momentum of the blow had thrown the gourgaz off-balance, and Lone Wolf took the opportunity to dance forward and sink his sword deep into its stomach. A downward swipe of his axe half-severed one of its feet, and it stumbled confusedly. A giak arrow intended for Lone Wolf's back went astray and lodged itself in the gourgaz's face, just below the left eye. The beast screamed, and plucked at the arrow, pulling it away. With the barb came tatters of reptilian flesh. The gourgaz bent itself double from the pain. Lone Wolf caught the head of its axe with his own, and swept the weapon clear of the creature's grasp. The giant reptile recovered its stance a little, and the long, evil claws of its hands extended, gleaming ivory-white in the stark daylight. It staggered towards Lone Wolf, its vast arms opened wide as if to embrace him. He danced aside from its lumbering advance and leapt into the air as high as he could, bringing his sword whistling round to cut a deep gash directly across its throat. A fountain of ichor deluged the ground for several yards around. The creature's dying bellow almost burst Lone Wolf's eardrums. The gourgaz swayed on its feet for a few seconds and then shambled helplessly forwards, dead already, to collapse face-downwards on the slick ground. One of its arms lay across Pelathar's slumped body, almost maternally. Lone Wolf had no time to gloat over his victory. The cordon of Zagarna's spawn was being relentlessly repulsed driven back by Pelathar's forces. The ring was contracting towards him. His arms flew as he fended and parried with both sword and axe. His clothing, hands and face were a mess of sickly green spawn-blood. The giaks and drakkarim had recognized him as a Kai; whether he had somehow survived the massacre or whether he had simply donned the costume and hence the practices and principles of the Kai was irrelevant to them: all they knew was that he must die. He dodged in a rain of arrows, his axe and his sword stabbing and cutting. Again he hardly had a mind. Something much more basic had taken over control of his actions. Thoughts would not have been able to move quickly enough to order his body to behave in the way it was currently behaving . . . swaying aside from an arrow, jumping backwards to avoid a hissing giak sword, parrying a staff while landing a fatal blow on the drakkar

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wielding it . . . It was like a dance, but all performed far more swiftly and with more agility than any normal dancer could have done it. And he found himself singing as he moved. He couldn't understand the words that were spilling from his lips and nor could he truly follow the alien cadences of the music. Storm Hawk might have recognized the song as the battle hymn of Nyxator, the sea-dragon who, many thousands of years before, had met his doom at the hands of the Demonlord Agarash; but of course Storm Hawk was as dead as those two were. All Lone Wolf could tell was that somehow the song was increasing his strength, stamina and perception to a level beyond the mortal. And the giaks and drakkarim were being forced back by his lightning ferocity. They preferred to risk their lives attempting to drive through the throng of Court Guards than face the solitary figure of Lone Wolf. 4 A short or a long time later, the battle had become a rout. The creatures of Zagarna's army retreated back over the bridge, leaving behind them many dead and wounded. They launched a final fusillade of arrows at the Sommlending and especially at the crumpled body of Pelathar. Soldiers defended the Prince with a wall of shields; the young Kai stranger was incidentally protected. For moments the sky was greyed by wave after wave of the giaks' black arrows. The sound of them ricocheting from and splintering on the soldiers' metal shields was like hail on a skylight window. All the strength drained from Lone Wolf, and he collapsed beside his prince. His exertions over the last hour or so had eroded the resources of his body, and now he was paying the price. His already slight form had lost at least ten pounds; exhaustion permeated him. His mind was a numbed sponge. All he wanted to do was sleep. But sleep was not to be allowed him. His face was level with Pelathar's. The Prince's clear blue eyes were wide open. Obviously he was in considerable pain, and yet the light of his eyes was rational; he was possessed of that cold clarity which can immediately precede death. He'd accepted, like a true warrior, that he was soon to die, and the prospect didn't trouble him. He was trying to whisper something through the blood that smeared his mouth. Lone Wolf had to move his head forward in order to hear the words.

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"I don't know who you are, youth, but you've displayed true valour here." Lone Wolf was silent. "My soldiers will now be able to deal with these scum." The Prince's hand gestured, though jerkily and with obvious difficulty. "But this is only a skirmish, boy. Zagarna's armies are all over western Sommerlund, and our forces aren't strong enough to repel them -- even to stall them." Pelathar was interrupted by a burst of uncontrollable coughing. More blood sprayed from his mouth, dotting Lone Wolf's tunic. One of the soldiers touched a knotted hand soothingly to the Prince's forehead. At last Pelathar was able to continue. "Where are you bound, stranger?" he said, and his voice was even weaker now than before. "I go to Holmgard," said Lone Wolf. "But first let me help you secure a victory here." "No, boy. No. No. I tell you, my soldiers can defeat them now . . . now that you've turned the battle for us. I have something else I want you to do." "I will do whatever you require of me, your highness," said Lone Wolf. His limbs felt like lead and a pulse was thundering at his temples. "Carry on with your journey to Holmgard. Take my own horse Janos if that will speed you on your way. Gain an audience with my father himself and tell him that things are much worse than he could ever have imagined. Zagarna's spawn outnumber my armies a thousand to one. My soldiers have served me well these past days, but half of them have lost their lives in our battles with the forces of Darkness. They'll fight until the last man falls -- I trust them in that -- but it cannot be long before all of them are gone." Again he was seized by a fit of coughing. Again the blood flowed. "Tell the king he must raise an army from among the people of Sommerlund. Tell him to command the barons of Ruanon, Toran, the Southlund Marches and the Kirlundin Isles to gather their forces together. The Seneschal of Tyso will barely need telling; he's a true friend to my father." The prince's eyes rolled upwards. "And tell the king one more thing, youth. Tell him that he must recover that which is in Durenor, or all is lost. He'll know what you mean." The prince was unconscious, and Lone Wolf sensed that he had seen the light of day for the last time.

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He got to his feet, and stood there unsteadily. He looked at one of the soldiers who'd gathered around. "You heard your prince," he said. "He wanted me to take his steed and carry on my way to Holmgard." The white stallion had recovered its feet, and was pacing impatiently. A soldier whose antiquity was written in the lines of his face nodded to Lone Wolf. He said: "I heard the words of Pelathar. Go, boy. Go now." Lone Wolf called Janos, and it was if the stallion had known him all its life. It trotted purposefully across to him and nuzzled its nose into his armpit. Lone Wolf wondered for a moment if the horse had understood the dying words of its previous master. He rejected the idea instantly; then he conjectured that, since Janos and Pelathar had been together for so many long years, perhaps it might be that the horse had understood the sentiments if not the words. He realized suddenly that speculations like these were pointless. Clearly the horse had decided that, from now on, its master was Lone Wolf. Nothing else really mattered. Lone Wolf turned and placed a blessing on the forehead of his prince. Pelathar didn't move. It was plain to all of those gathered there, in the unnatural stillness that was the eye of the storm of battle, that the Prince had breathed his last. The realization made the soldiers slump momentarily; even worse was the fact that the young Kai who had turned the battle so successfully was soon to leave them. Yet they had been commanded by Pelathar to resist the giaks and drakkarim that confronted them; this still remained as their prime imperative. They linked shields and moved into battle formation, leaving Lone Wolf free to clamber onto Janos's back. The effort was almost too much for him; for a moment after he'd settled himself in the saddle the world blanked out completely. The horse was uneasy, smelling the blood and ichor covering its new rider. He patted its brow reassuringly. "Go now," said one of the soldiers urgently. "Go! Zagarna's troops are regrouping." An arrow whipped past Lone Wolf's nose, and he threw his head backwards. His battered mind was capable, just, of realizing that he would be of no further use here; he'd served his purpose. His colossal exertions had so drained him that, if he stayed any longer, he would be nothing but a hindrance to the soldiers of the Court Guard. Besides, the rout had been so successful that victory must be assured them.

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Reckoning by the baleful sun, he turned Janos's head to the south, and with a cry of "Farewell!" urged the horse into a gallop.

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7 Doomwolves 1 The hours passed and still the kraan patrolled over the plains surrounding Toran, picking off fugitives from the burning city. One of those fugitives they dared not approach: a bent old man, accompanied by a giak and riding on a proud white mare. The first few kraan that had dived eagerly towards him had exploded into fiery nothingness; their fellows, despite the low calibre of the kraan intellect, finally managed to reason that this particular human was somehow taboo. Vonotar was sick at heart. His mind could think of nothing except the fact that, once again, he had been thwarted by that infuriating chit called Alyss. Why she should have been sent to plague him was a matter beyond conjecture -- as far as he was concerned, it was simply that the fates had decided to be sadistic towards him. Zagarna, when he reported the matter to the Darklord, might be tempted to try to be likewise, but Vonotar was confident enough of his own magical capabilities that the thought of Zagarna's wrath no longer held any terrors for him. He had become rather bored with the Darklord and his neverending rage, the inhuman fury that imbued him through and through. One of these days, one of these days soon, he must work out some safe way of disposing of Zagarna forever. Then Magnamund would be Vonotar's, and Vonotar's alone. He pulled Allia to a halt and surveyed the plain around him. Carag leapt to the ground and grinned eagerly. "I go . . . kill . . . people?" The giak gestured at a little party of women and children beset by kraan on the brow of a nearby hillock. "No, Carag. Stay with me for the moment." The giak looked disappointed. Abruptly the depression lifted from Vonotar, with a mental snap! which he almost heard aloud. To be sure, he had been defeated in a skirmish with the witch girl, but the war was far from over. In almost all respects the forces of Darkness were triumphant -- as was only too evident from the column of smoke rising above Toran. The Brotherhood of the Crystal Star remained a threat to them, but surely it was only a minor one. If need be, he could devise a thought which would encircle Toran and seal it away from all the rest of Sommerlund. Of course, that wouldn't be as satisfying as bringing

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about the absolute destruction of the Guild to which he'd once belonged, but it would nullify all possible danger from their magic. And, now that the Kai were extinguished, there were few other feasible threats from the Sommlending: the forces of the king might slow the conquest a little, but they could do no more serious harm than a gnat biting the skin of a gourgaz. Sommerlund was Zagarna's for the taking and then, with Zagarna out of the way . . . One of the children had defied all the odds to wound a kraan mortally. The girl -- no more than thirteen or fourteen -- looked with disbelief at the tiny kitchen knife with which she'd done the deed. It was the last expression to cross her face, because another kraan struck her from behind, one of its iron-hard claws piercing between her shoulders and straight through her heart. Carag hopped from foot to foot as he watched this scene. He cackled with delight as the red blood leapt. "You . . . sure . . . master . . . I . . . not . . . have some . . . killing? I only . . . take . . . a moment." "Silence, Carag, you stupid little shit!" snarled Vonotar, and the giak cringed. In fact, the magician's current mood was such that the sternness of his voice had been merely reflex. As if to make amends, he patted Carag affectionately on the head, a gesture which Carag found both confusing and terrifying. The giak waited for a spitting blue bolt of lightning, or something similar, and was filled with gloom when none came. His simple mind was a less than finely honed mechanism, and so human mood-shifts were beyond his comprehension. He sadly assumed that Vonotar was simply biding his time before inflicting some even direr punishment. Yet it never dawned on Carag to desert Vonotar; wherever his master wanted him to be he would be, and whatever his master wanted him to do he would do. Anyone who might have asked Carag why this should be the case would have been met with either a blank stare or lethal violence. Carag's mind was not capable of encompassing the notion that the status quo might be only a single possibility among future realities. "Sorry . . . master," he croaked miserably. "Another time, perhaps, you can go and do some raping and butchering," said Vonotar. "I've no objections in principle, you understand. It's just that right at this moment you and I have better things at hand. Most important of these is getting to Kaag. I have to tell Zagarna of the partial failure of our mission." "Zagarna . . . not . . . be . . . too . . . thrilled . . . to get . . . news,"

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mumbled Carag. If the magician didn't kill him the Darklord would. One of the less pleasing aspects of Kaag was the custom of feeding the flying beasts -- the kraan, zlanbeast and crypt spawn -- with living giaks. Carag felt no particular sympathy for or identification with other giaks when they met their screaming deaths, but he was aware of the fact that he had no great urge to join their number. "Don't worry, my friend," said Vonotar comfortingly. "I'll put a shield around you. Even if Zagarna tries to kill you as a way of venting his anger, you'll be safe." The day was glowingly bright, the greens of the grass and the trees almost painfully intense. Small red flowers dotted the land around the road, whose metal was split hither and thither by clumps of dark-green moss. The wind waved the branches of the trees and the leaves of the grass. There were only a few clouds in the sky -- high, wispy, puffy traceries of pure white wool, as insubstantial as a spider's web. On the hillock near to them, the slaughter of the women and children provided a brutal contrast. Vonotar, however, heard their screams and cries as being at one with the whispering of the wind through the trees, and he loved the woven sounds with the same intensity as a musician loves hearing an instrument produce a perfect chord. "Allia," the magician said abruptly. "Time for you to spend a while in my pocket once more." He raised an eyebrow, and the mare began rapidly to shrink. When she was the size of a mouse he picked her up, despite her desperate efforts to flee from his grasp, and popped her, not unkindly, into one of the pockets of his robe. "And now," he explained to Carag, "we fly to Kaag to give Zagarna our news." "Not . . . sure . . . good . . . idea," said the giak sullenly. "Prefer . . . drowning in cold . . . puke." "Carag, if I weren't in such a good mood I think I'd probably create a few suppurating boils in some of the less desirable pans of your anatomy just to remind you that dissent is not one of your options. However . . ." The magician looked up towards the sky, where the kraan and the zlanbeast whirled. He targeted his thoughts towards one especially impressive imperial zlanbeast, and within moments it was spiralling down towards them to land on the verdant grass nearby. It looked at the two of them hungrily, but Vonotar imprinted firmly on its rudimentary brain the knowledge that he and Carag were its friends -- well, allies -- rather than its

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foes. "Tell the creature that we wish to go to Kaag," Vonotar instructed Carag, his thin grey-white hair blown back by a sudden gust of wind across his pink, wizened skull. He could have given the zlanbeast the order using direct mental contact, but he didn't want to betray to Zagarna's spawn the full extent of his powers. Should it come about, as he was certain it would, that he and the Darklord feuded, the less Zagarna's troopers knew of Vonotar's abilities the better. Carag jabbered rapidly for a moment, and the zlanbeast nodded in acquiescence. As they became airborne Carag muttered: "Already . . . got . . . boils . . . in . . . less desirable . . . parts of. . . anatomy." Fortunately for the giak the wind whipped his words away, so Vonotar never heard them. 2 Banedon, who had been watching the whole scene with interest, although he was far too far away to hear any of the conversation, turned his head to watch the zlanbeast flying swiftly towards the west. Presumably Vonotar was going to Kaag. The information might be of use to his Guildmaster . . . if, indeed, any of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star had survived the firebombing of Toran. His eyes narrowed as he looked at the terrain between himself and the city. If he was careful, it was just possible that he might be able to get there, using occasional bushes, copses and stream beds as protection. The kraan could move with terrifying rapidity, but their reactions were slow. If he could trace out such a route that he was never exposed for more than a few seconds at a time . . . He chose to clamp down on these rational thoughts. If he began to calculate the odds for and against his success he'd stay here all day, nervously invoking dread images of his own demise. Much better simply to go ahead and do it. He crossed the fifty yards to the nearest shrub in a shorter time than he could have imagined possible. His next goal was a tumbledown shed, beyond which he could make out a small clump of trees. He checked around and above him, then sprinted.

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3 Prince Pelathar's horse made good speed along the twisting forest path -almost too good a speed, in fact, because Lone Wolf had to duck and dodge as low-hanging twigs and branches rocketed towards him at a fearsome rate. Within seconds the clangour of battle had disappeared behind him, and it was as if he were all alone in the midst of a wooded world. The sunlight dappled down, giving everything he could see about him a softly mottled appearance. Birds darted between the trees, chirping their irritation at the intrusion of Janos's thunderous hoofbeats. Ahead he noticed a flying fox gliding from one branch to another, but by the time he came level with where it had been it had shyly melted away. The fertile brown earth spat up muddily behind the horse's hoofs. The miles sped by until at last he came to a glade in which there was a crossroads. Once upon a time there had been a signpost here, but now all that was left was a rotting stump. It looked as if the upper part had been hacked off quite recently, but Lone Wolf couldn't be sure. Perhaps one of the local peasants had destroyed it in order to hinder Zagarna's giaks as they tried to find their way about this strange land -- Lone Wolf mentally applauded such forethought, while at the same time cursing it. Janos sensed the perplexity of his rider and, without any instructions from Lone Wolf, drew to a halt. A shock of long grass near to the side of the track presented an irresistible temptation and he turned his head sideways to crop at it. Lone Wolf stared at the remains of the signpost, willing it to tell him which was the road to Holmgard. For a moment he received no impressions at all -- he was simply glaring at a lump of rotting wood -- but then the focus of his mind shifted. It seemed to him as if he were viewing the glade as it had been, or might be, in a time different from this. The light changed completely; it was now the evening of a winter's day. The sign was covered with a layer of snow, but he could make out that the track to his left led to Holmgard. He shook his head suddenly, and the vision disappeared. He didn't know whether or not to trust what he'd seen. It was no secret to him that the more advanced members of the Kai had developed what they called the Tracking ability, but he had never himself experienced it. Perhaps this was how it worked. There was no way he could tell. However, whichever path he chose had a fifty per cent chance of being the right one,

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so there was nothing to be lost by following his instincts. Again Janos made good speed, and Lone Wolf had to rein the stallion back to a canter. From time to time he had noticed broad, clawed footprints in the earth of the track, and he recognized these as the spoor of doomwolves. They could have been made any time during the twelve hours or so since the rainstorm, which meant that for all he knew the tracks were only a few minutes old. The tracks themselves gave no clue of their age. He didn't want to go galloping at full pelt into the back of a pack of the ferocious creatures. His caution paid dividends, as he discovered some minutes later. Framed by the trees ahead, he saw the silhouette of a doomwolf crossing a small rise in the track. Immediately he pulled Janos up short. Four more of the grimly loping silhouettes followed the first. Each of the doomwolves was bearing a giak rider, and he had no doubt at all that those riders would be armed to the hilt. But doomwolves were fearsome enough adversaries on their own. He shuddered. He was weakened from the day's exertions. His confidence in his ability to battle against these vicious beasts and their equally ferocious riders was low. His heart missed a beat. Perhaps the giaks or their mounts had heard Janos behind them, because now he saw that one of the doomwolves, a giak astride it, had turned and was racing back towards him. Instantly he guided Janos into the shelter of some thick bushes, hoping they would conceal the horse's great armoured form. His hopes were, he realized at once, born more of optimism than anything else. The doomwolf was running with its long snout close to the ground, coursing this way and that, trying to pick up a trail. Lone Wolf thought swiftly. When the doomwolf finally found a scent it would be Janos's. He could confuse the beast simply by leaping to the ground and urging Janos further into the dense shrubbery. That might give him just the element of surprise he needed. He hated to risk the horse's life -- already he'd grown to love the strong, tireless animal, and he was fully conscious of the fact that it is given to few to receive the gifts of princes -- but it was far more important that he himself survived. Janos seemed to understand Lone Wolf's intentions, because as soon as the youth had jumped to the ground the horse worked his own way deeper into the forest, requiring no promptings. He stopped about fifty yards from

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the track, his sides heaving slowly. Lone Wolf, making as little noise as possible in the circumstances, dashed thirty or forty yards parallel to the path, back in the direction from which they'd come. He hid himself in a convenient bush. Wind tossed the little branches above his head. Patches of light flickered across his face as he crouched. Within seconds the doomwolf reached the place where Lone Wolf had pulled Janos off the path. Its lips were pulled back from its unnaturally long teeth, through which dangled its fleshy grey tongue. There was a light of madness in its eyes. Clearly it had recently been in combat; a long slash across its flank oozed crimson. Perhaps the members of this small band were fugitives from the Alema Bridge battle. The beast stopped abruptly, and turned its head to stare directly into the forest. It glanced up towards its rider as if seeking permission to follow the scent, and then dived into the foliage. Within moments Lone Wolf was on the path. Moving almost noiselessly, he sprinted back to where the doomwolf and giak had vanished, unsheathing his sword as he ran. He prayed that none of the rest of the party had turned to follow their comrades. His prayers were granted. Janos stood his ground as the doomwolf approached. He gave no sign that he could see his new master following up the rear. The doomwolf and the giak were so involved in contemplation of the forthcoming pleasures of slaughtering and devouring this proud animal that they heard nothing of the commotion behind them as Lone Wolf fought his way through the shrubbery. The giak slavered as it drew its cruel, serrated sword. The first they knew of Lone Wolf's presence was when the giak's head steepled off into the undergrowth. The doomwolf turned swiftly, the decapitated body of its erstwhile rider toppling from its back. It snarled, the last noise it ever made. Lone Wolf plunged his sword directly into the spawn's mouth, sinking it so deep that his fingers on the hilt ended up only a fraction of an inch away from the doomwolf's snout. The creature convulsed, and silently collapsed. Lone Wolf's sword, as he withdrew it, was slick with the beast's weirdly blue-grey blood. Hastily he wiped the weapon on some grass before replacing it in its sheath.

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The act of killing had occurred in almost total silence. Neither victim had made a sound. There was every chance that the other giaks and doomwolves would have no idea that anything had befallen their companions. Yet sooner or later they would begin to wonder what had happened, and come back in search. Lone Wolf's mind rebelled at the thought of flight. Besides, they might simply follow Janos's scent and track the two of them down further back along the path. The bloodlust that had filled him during the battle at the Alema Bridge was returning. Seemingly unbounded strength came to his limbs as he vaulted easily into Janos's saddle and directed the horse's head back through the undergrowth towards the path. As they neared it, he heard the muffled thunder of doomwolf paws on the path's damp earth. Clearly the remainder of the band had realized all too soon that something was amiss. Lone Wolf didn't care. His earlier caution had vanished, as if snatched away by the wind. Every cell in his body was urging him to slay more of the Darklords' spawn. His muscles were singing with the delights of combat. His vision seemed heightened, all the colours of the forest unnaturally gaudy. He rode directly out onto the path and turned to face his assailants. He held his sword high above his head and screamed a wordless mixture of defiance and sheer exhilaration. Then he dug his heels into Janos's flanks, and the horse surged forward like an arrow from a bow. The doomwolves were confused. They were accustomed to attacking, not defending. They missed their footing as they tried to accommodate this new turn of events. A split second later Lone Wolf and Janos were among them, almost through them. As the leading giak attempted to turn its mount, its face was shattered by a kick from one of the horse's rear hooves. Clutching its mangled jaw, it flew into the shrubbery, screaming its last. Good work, my friend, thought Lone Wolf, patting Janos's head in a moment of lucidity before the bloodlust took him over completely. It was the intention of the doomwolves to direct their attack towards Janos's unprotected underbelly. Nothing could have pleased Lone Wolf more. His sword in his right hand and his axe in his left, he arced the weapons down to splinter the oncoming skulls of the questing animals. Two were dead within seconds, and one of the others mortally injured. Janos trampled one of the fallen giaks to death while Lone Wolf, with a single horizontal swing of his sword, cut the other almost in two.

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The wounded doomwolf was staggering blindly. Its rider leapt to the ground, shoving its mount aside. The creature staggered into the undergrowth, moaning as the life ebbed from it. The giak darted to stand beside the riderless doomwolf, which was still recovering from the surprise of having its own rider so suddenly kicked from its back. The giak spat its hatred at Lone Wolf and Janos. Its black serrated sword swished fitfully in the air. It clapped its hand on the shoulders of the doomwolf, and the creature sprang directly towards Lone Wolf's throat. He swayed in the saddle, and brought up the sharp point of his axe to rake the doomwolf's belly. It shrieked in fury, but gained a foothold in Janos's armour. Its hot, fetid breath brushed Lone Wolf's face as it struggled to ensnare his face in its jaws. He was dimly aware of a pain in his left forearm. The giak had gashed him with its sword, and was drawing the weapon back behind it preparatory to an attempt to sever his arm. Without thinking he lashed out with his axe. Its point struck the giak in the eye. Reflexively Lone Wolf twisted the haft, and the giak screamed its agony. As it fell it dragged the axe out of Lone Wolf's hand. So quickly that his movement was almost invisible he snatched the dagger from his belt and drove it to the hilt into the underside of the doomwolf's throat. The creature's eyes glazed and it coughed a torrent of blood. Lone Wolf brought the pommel of his sword hard down on the doomwolf's head. The force was so great that even the unnaturally strong cartilage of the creature's skull was pressed in to smash its brain. With a last malodorous gush of breath, the doomwolf died. Lone Wolf withdrew his dagger and the huge form fell to the ground, its feet in the air. The flaccid body slowly flopped over onto its side. As before, Lone Wolf was utterly exhausted when the bloodlust left him. With difficulty he clambered down from the saddle and limped off to seek out the giak that Janos had incapacitated at the very outset of the combat. It was lying in a natural hollow, its face in its stubby hands, groaning shrilly in pain. Even when Lone Wolf stood right beside it, it made no move towards the sword in its belt. Although it was not truly a living thing, and although its entire life must have been dedicated to cruelty and Evil, Lone Wolf was remarkably reluctant to end the giak's existence. At the same time, he knew he couldn't

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be so pitiless as simply to leave it here, where it might suffer agonies for hours or even days before death claimed it. Slowly, forcing his limbs to obey the commands of his mind, he fetched his axe, tugging it with distaste from the giak whose life it had taken. A single swing, and the wounded giak's head was sundered from its shoulders. Lone Wolf leant on his axe and retched uncontrollably. To kill giaks in the heat of battle was one thing; to dispose of them cold-bloodedly like this, when they were defenceless, was quite another. He cursed the world for being such that only through cruelty and carnage could peace and justice be brought about; had Magnamund been populated solely by Sommlending, and uncorrupted by the incursions of the forces of Darkness, surely it would all have been so very different. Human beings, largely speaking, lived in peace and harmony with each other. There would have been no need for all this killing. He was weak from exhaustion and revulsion as he tottered back towards Janos. It was all he could do to haul himself up into the saddle. He was conscious, but only just; his mind was for the moment incapable of thought. He made sure that Janos was pointing in the right direction, and then gave the stallion its head. 4 The main gates of Toran had charred and split in the incredible heat of the firestorm, and now hung lopsidedly from their gigantic hinges. Wind howled in the long tunnel that extended through the wall, blowing a deep, uncanny, flutish note. Banedon had reached the city with surprising ease, his technique of darting from one place of concealment to the next having outwitted the circling kraan. Only once had he felt himself at any risk. He'd stumbled out of a clump of bushes to find himself confronting a solitary and forlorn giak, whose kraan had been slain by a well directed Sommlending arrow. The giak had been as startled as Banedon, but its hand had leapt instantly to its sword. Banedon had drawn upon all of his meagre magical resources to create a spell-thought which he had hardly realized he possessed. He conjured up the illusion that he was, likewise, a giak -- and always had been. The genuine giak had blinked and stuttered a little, but had been completely taken in. Banedon had gestured wildly in the direction of

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Toran, giving the impression that he was acting on urgent orders, and had scuttled on his way. He had had the strength to resist the pain brought about by the magical effort only long enough to reach his next haven, a rotted piece of primitive machinery which had been left by some farmer, who knew how long ago, to moulder and decay. In its shelter he had collapsed, tears starting from his eyes. Even now his limbs ached from the remembered pain. The experience had been unpleasant to him not just because of the physical agonies. For half a minute or so he had not only created the illusion of being a giak; he had to all intents and purposes been one -- otherwise the illusion would have been incomplete. He had thought a giak's thoughts and felt a giak's emotions. The recollection of the Evil which he had invited into his mind made him shudder. For a short while he had found himself contemplating the most sadistic of acts with enthusiastic anticipation. False memories had crowded in on him, of impaling children and burning adults alive. He had revelled in the mental images of deeds which were totally alien to his own mind. But perhaps even worse had been the way in which all of his thought-patterns had been temporarily altered to such a radical degree: humans and giaks simply do not think in the same way, and the experience of finding himself following thought-patterns that no human brain had ever been constructed to accept had chilled him. He remembered only too clearly having had a giak mind, and he wished he couldn't. The devastation within the city was almost too much for him to comprehend. Everywhere were smoke and steam, wreathing the scene with a grey, oily shroud; gazing upon it, he felt as if his eyes had somehow lost their focus, for every object that he looked at was blurred around the edges. All wooden structures had, of course, disappeared long ago; their remains still glowed threateningly red here and there. Charred bodies were everywhere: men, women and children, some of them barely recognizable as human forms, were contorted into shapes that reflected with sickening accuracy their final agonies. A few people were still alive -- those who had been crushed by falling masonry rather than captured by the flames -- and their piteous moans filled his ears. But there was nothing he could do for them: his imperative was to reach his Guild. If his fellows in the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star had been so ruthlessly annihilated as had been the rest of Toran's population, then he must think again. But he had faith in their collective magical abilities. They must have survived. Then he remembered having seen an aged figure perform magic . . . That person could surely have been none other than Vonotar. The

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magic which Vonotar had created would surely have been impossible for any strict adherent of the Left Hand Path; it must have involved the use of some of the lore of the Nadziranim. If Vonotar were capable of . . . Banedon's mind recoiled at the thought of what Vonotar might now be capable of. He moved even faster through the debris-scattered streets of Toran, steeling his mind to ignore the cries of the wounded. For all he knew, every member of his Guild might now be dead, riven by magic of a level far higher than anything they had ever encountered before. Alyss was sitting astride a fallen beam, humming to herself. Banedon was infuriated to meet her here. She had shown him the astonishing powers which she could exert, and he was understandably in awe of her -- yet, at the same time, shouldn't an entity of her ability should have been able to use those powers to save Toran? For all he knew, some of the friends with whom he'd played vtovlry in happier days were now crushed and dying among the wreckage of this once proud city. Why couldn't Alyss have repelled the forces of Darkness? Because, said her maddeningly complacent voice in his mind, as I keep saying, I can change the future only a little. The universe of Aon had already "decided" that Toran must be razed. Oh, the city will rise again one day, and with startling swiftness, but even so it will be a year or more before that happens. In the meantime, Banedon, I've done as much as I can -- which has involved nothing less than saving your bunch of amateur magicians. Banedon stiffened. Describing the adepts who subscribed to the doctrines of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star in this way was a deadly insult. Stop producing such stereotyped reactions, Alyss's thoughts chastised him. I really do lose patience with you sometimes, Banedon. If it weren't for the fact that I know you've got an important part to play in the future, I'd ditch you. And it would be well deserved. You're happy enough to take advantage of my help when it suits you, but then you have the impertinence to object to my description of your Guild. I mean, who was it who guarded your progress over the plain? Do you honestly think your own powers would have been capable of protecting you from the kraan? That stunt you pulled -- pretending to be a giak -- do you think you'd have been able to do it without a little outside help? "I did that all on my own," said Banedon out loud, but even as he spoke he recognized that, despite his fondest convictions, the magical effort should really have been beyond his unaided abilities.

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You're being silly, Banedon, Alyss remarked. Now, I've got only a little while to chatter on with you, so pay attention. The voice in his mind had all the patronizing airs of a schoolmistress hectoring a wayward pupil. As you were told when you ventured into the tapestry I gave you, there are three people who can counter the Darklord Zagarna's conquest of Sommerlund -- assuming they act together, that is. One of them is you; another is that young Kai, Lone Wolf, whom you've met. His task is to take the war to the enemy; yours, with the help of a third person, Qinefer, whom you'll meet some time in the not-too-distant future, is to put Sommerlund back on its feet again. Something you'll fail to do unless you grow up a bit. Again Banedon stiffened. If anything, this girl was younger than he was. Oh, you clot, I'm not talking about years. I'm talking about your personality. At the moment you're just a mess of childish complexes. Get rid of them! Start recognizing that you're nearly old enough to be an adult! And if you're an adult that means you've got to take on the responsibilities of adulthood. She sucked idly at a fingernail, but it was clear from the way her entire body was tensed that she was furious with him. Go to your Guild, right now, and try to explain to that old codger with the beard that the future of Magnamund depends -- at least in part -- on you. Go on! Get moving! She gestured angrily. Then, with a final irate flash of her green eyes, she faded from sight. Banedon, echoed a last thought, I'm getting extremely fed up with you. If it weren't for the fact that I've observed that one day we'll be in love with each other, I'd have deserted you long ago. You really don't deserve me, you know. Banedon reflected waspishly that this final comment could be interpreted in more ways than one. However, he began to run at full speed along the littered street towards the Guild Hall of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. 5 The drakkarim which Zagarna customarily gathered around him as token advisers had learned to classify his rages into three categories. First there was "spectacular", which involved roaring and thunder but comparatively little loss of life: a drakkar or two might be torn asunder and partially consumed, but that was about the extent of it. Next up the scale came

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"blinding". Here it was essential for any of the advisers who valued their lives to seek out a secure hiding place; only a few days ago Zagarna had had his entire troop of advisers eaten alive by kraan and zlanbeast in order to encourage their successors to be more assiduous about seeking out intruders in their ranks. Finally there was "staggering", which indicated a death sentence for any living creature within eyeshot as well as quite a few who weren't. Zagarna's current rage fell into the third category. He stormed along the cavernous corridors of Kaag, meting out death to any creature which had aroused his heightened ire by, for example, daring to exist. Behind him there were tatters of torn spawn-flesh, spatterings of ichor, and an incongruously self-confident Vonotar, accompanied as usual by Carag. The magician was moving in a mincing gait which was a conscious parody-by-understatement of Zagarna's long lurching strides; he turned to his assistant and winked, hoping to share the joke, but Carag simply looked even blanker than usual. Giak brains are not complex enough to understand jokes -- or even to know what jokes are. The giaks had heard of the human attribute of humour, but because it was something totally beyond their comprehension they distrusted it devoutly, ascribing to it magical properties. (In this respect they were, quite by accident, perfectly correct, but this was a fact largely unknown in the world of Magnamund.) Zagarna entered his courtroom and flung himself furiously into his throne. He cursed for so long and with such imagination that Vonotar and Carag pulled up chairs and sat listening with interest. By the time the Darklord's bubbling voice had come to its eventual conclusion Vonotar had kicked off a shoe and was calmly picking grit from between his toes. "Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't have you executed, wizard?" "Yes." Zagarna paid the word no heed. "Your 'great plan' to exterminate the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star has proved to be a total fiasco. They've driven you back without suffering anything more than incidental casualties. They've humiliated you and they've made me look like a fool!" "Not difficult." "Eh? Speak up, speak up, man! No matter. Your death is going to be an agonizing one, wizard. I'll instruct the . . ." Suddenly the meaning of Vonotar's responses permeated through into

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Zagarna's brain. "How dare you defy me!" he cried, his slaty voice reaching the volume of a normal conversation. He threw a drakkar head which he'd been gnawing with his lower mouth into a far corner of the room. "So you think I'm a fool, do you? Your death will take many painful months. First the kraan will --" "But you're not going to kill me, my friend," said Vonotar, intervening with quietly exaggerated patience. "Am I not?" The Darklord's vast eyes blinked slowly. He wasn't used to argument. He didn't enjoy the experience of being contradicted. "No, because even if you tried you couldn't. I'm far too strong for you." "Not strong enough to conquer the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star, it seems." "On the contrary, Darklord, I had the Guild cupped in the palm of my hand, ready for me to crush easily between my fingers. Then I was . . . interrupted." The magician had little desire to dwell too long upon this aspect of events. He hurried on: "There's an entity at loose in Magnamund which seems to control events to a greater degree than would seem to be naturally possible. I've come up against it twice, now, and, while both times it has failed in its intention to eliminate me, it has nevertheless been sufficiently capable to thwart my will." "Prove it!" "You know the proof yourself, Darklord. Only a few days ago that entity adopted the guise of one of your drakkarim. You ordered that it be executed, but unfortunately the giaks you sent arrived too late." Vonotar pulled at an earlobe and smiled with cold confidence. Zagarna had only dim recollections of the event. He enjoyed killing, and indulged in it frequently: it was hard for him to keep track of individual murders or of those who had died at his behest. But then there was a flicker of memory. "You mean the drakkar called Alyss?" he bubbled. "That's the very one. Only it isn't a drakkar. Mostly it takes the form of a young Sommlending girl. You can't be expected to understand these things, Darklord, but if you were a human you'd recognize her human semblance as bizarrely attractive. Alyss -- let's call her a 'she' -- she possesses more power than even myself. It was she who drove me out of Toran, when I was on the verge of destroying the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Of course, she made a great mistake in doing so."

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Carag looked utterly mystified. For this the Darklord resolved to spare the little giak's life -- at least for the moment. Carag had missed much of what had gone on in the Guild's Great Hall, but from what he had seen and heard he'd received the distinct impression that his master had been thoroughly humiliated. "Because, you see," Vonotar continued smoothly, the flames of his eyes flaring to a bright orange, "nothing could suit us better than the Brotherhood's continued survival." "Vonotar, your sophistry becomes ridiculous," said the Darklord. Carag accidentally nodded in agreement before he could stop himself. He winced, but fortunately Vonotar hadn't noticed. "No, not ridiculous," the magician countered. "Merely a little unorthodox. Think of it: which single force now stands between us and the total subjugation of Sommerlund?" "The Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. They must be washed away from the face of the world before we can assume total supremacy." Zagarna thought of Vonotar's stooped body reduced to its component parts, and enjoyed the image. "On the contrary." Vonotar stood up and paced thoughtfully away from the Darklord's throne. Suddenly he spun round, and looked directly into Zagarna's eyes. The Darklord flinched. The flames were disconcerting, even to a creature who was virtually omnipotent. "You see," said the magician, "in my excursion to Toran I discovered that single-handedly I have the ability to counter all of the magical will of the Brotherhood. I can hold them at bay easily enough -- by Naar, it would take little trouble to annihilate them!" "But --" "Precisely. 'But.' I can't, on the other hand, as yet win so much as a battle against Alyss. Nevertheless, she can't spend all of her time guarding the members of the Brotherhood. I can bide my time and destroy them at some moment which suits us. There lies our advantage. None of the Sommlending realize this. As far as they're concerned, the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star was capable of not just repelling me but vanquishing me. Even the members of the Brotherhood probably believe this by now." "And so?" "Don't you see?" Whimsically the magician began to dance, apparently concentrating all of his attention on the perfect correctness of the steps he took. "The Sommlending, like the fools they are, will place all of their trust in the abilities of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star to defy us.

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At the moment we pick as being to our greatest advantage, we can kick away the final prop shoring up the kingdom of Sommerlund." Zagarna stroked his chin. The magician was possibly right. The Sommlending would mistakenly believe that the Brotherhood represented their greatest defence against his spawn. In so doing they'd be nurturing a weakness close to their hearts. The possibilities were endless, but all of them were favourable ones . . . "All right, wizard. For now I accept your advice. But take notice that this happy outcome of your failure may not be repeated. Watch where you step. Another mistake and your life will be forfeit." "Zagarna, your threats are tedious even when they're fulfilled." Vonotar gestured at the hunks of flesh that had been scattered all over the floor. They were sizzling and cooking in the heat. "As I've told you, there's no way you could kill me, even if you tried. And, just to give you a little bit of friendly advice, if I were you I wouldn't bother trying." He continued to dance, now softly singing a strange, high, wordless song. He broke off to add: "You see, Darklord, very soon now Sommerlund is going to be on its knees. At least, that'll be the case if we act in unison. If we squabble between ourselves, then it's just possible that the Sommlending might be able to defeat us. After the land is ours, then -- and only then -- it might make sense for us to discuss these matters. "Just at the moment, however, you'd be better organizing your troops than discussing tactics." The magician's song became a physical presence. It took the form of a giant bird, coloured blue and grey and chrome. Its beak was a savage curve. Its bright eyes perceived the Darklord, and its claws curled as it prepared to leap upon him. Zagarna saw the muscles at the top of its thighs contract, ready for the kill. He blinked. "I think that's quite enough singing for the moment," said Vonotar softly. The bird had vanished. "Come along, Carag; we must leave the Darklord to his meditations." He put his arm around the giak's shoulders, and led him from the room. He gave a casual wave as the two of them retreated. Zagarna's eyes were tight slits. Very soon now, he would revel in the wizard's death. But for the moment he would have to do his utmost to tolerate Vonotar's impertinence. Usefulness, however, is a very temporary quality.

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Soon . . . soon . . . Oh, Naar, let it be soon . . . 6 Janos galloped uninhibitedly now that they were clear of the forest. Lone Wolf loved the feel of the wind rushing through his hair. He realized that he stank, that he looked like something out of a nightmare, covered as he was in ichor and blood, some of it his own -- but he didn't care. The light of the late-afternoon sun was like a refreshing drink of chilled water to him. He heard a voice whooping, and it was a few instants later before he recognized it as his own. He looked left towards a meadow. On its far side he could see a long procession of wagons, interspersed by glum people on foot. Surely this must mean that he had rejoined the main highway to Holmgard, where the survivors of the onslaught were heading in order to seek a safe haven. Janos carried him easily through the cropped grass. On reaching the sullen congregation of fugitives, Lone Wolf tugged on the horse's reins to pull him to a halt. "Friend," said Lone Wolf to a grey-haired refugee, who took one look at the rider and decided that the appellation had been ill chosen. "Friend," Lone Wolf repeated, "is this the road to Holmgard?" "Hope so," said the old man grudgingly. "Otherwise me 'n' my family've been heading in the wrong direction these last days." He spat into the dust of the road. "Thanks," said Lone Wolf, dredging up from the last of his physical energies what he hoped was a convincing smile. He spurred Janos, and the horse galloped alongside the road's verge. Lone Wolf lost count of the miles as Janos showed the strength which had first attracted Prince Pelathar to him, long ago. The horse had apparently limitless energies. The same could not be said of Janos's rider. Lone Wolf became aware that the world about him seemed to be dimming in a way that was unrelated to the progression of the day. He felt as if twilight were creeping up from all his extremities, slowly intent on capturing his mind. He admitted to himself that today's exertions had seriously debilitated him, and that it was time to find a safe place to sleep. Within minutes exactly such a place appeared: a fringe of forest kissed the edge of the road, and its trees and undergrowth promised at least a shortterm security. He assumed the stolidly plodding refugees would be content

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to leave him alone, and steered Janos away from the road. Moments later he was pulling his stained green cloak around him, and moments after that he was deep in sleep. Janos, too, slept.

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8 The Graveyard of the Ancients 1 There's a story they tell the children in Sommerlund. Even Vonotar had been told it by his mother when he was young, but he'd long ago forgotten it. Like many children's stories it contains a message which adults would do well to ponder. It seems that once upon a time there was a storgh -- one of those voracious carnivores that haunt shallow waters -- which was born with not one head but two. Each of the heads had a brain, a set of teeth and a throat, but somewhere along their length the two throats united to lead to the creature's single stomach. The storgh was therefore unusually well qualified to capture prey, and thus eat as much as it wanted at all times -- perhaps even more. However, whenever the creature made a kill the two heads would start quarrelling as to which was allowed to do the eating. They would snap and bite and hammer their skulls at each other. And because of this the mutant storgh starved to death before it had even attained adulthood. Vonotar, to repeat, had heard the fable as a child, but had forgotten it. Zagarna, of course, had never been told it at all. And neither of them had ever thought about the sound of one hand clapping. A fortunate circumstance for Sommerlund. 2 Three things woke Lone Wolf. First there was the glittering brightness of a new dawn: greens and pinks filtered across the dome of the sky, tinting stray clouds. Second there was an affectionate nuzzling of his face by Janos, who was reminding his new master that the night had passed and that it was time to be away. Third, and most significant of all, there was the squawking of three kraan flying high above the spot where Lone Wolf had been sleeping. Although he could see them clearly through the cathedral-like arches of the branches overhead, he was fairly confident they hadn't spotted him. But their presence indicated that Zagarna's spawn had, during the night, worked their way far further southward than they had been the day before. He remained motionless as the kraan spiralled above him. He held Janos's bridle so that the horse, too, kept still. At last the three flying

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creatures, chittering eagerly among themselves, turned and headed off towards the north. Perhaps they'd only been reconnoitring the territory which the forces of Darkness wished next to conquer. Whatever the truth of the matter, the fact that there were kraan this far south meant his need to reach Holmgard was even more urgent than it had been before. Nevertheless, he couldn't find it within himself to set off just yet. The stink of his armpits was becoming offensive even to himself; he grinned as the fancy crossed his mind that his armpits could probably kill small animals stone dead if they came too close. He could tell that while he'd been asleep Janos had found some water, for the horse was largely cleansed of the blood and ichor which had coated his flanks. Lone Wolf himself was still covered in the stuff. The wound across his forehead was a nagging, throbbing pain. He had to wash. He peed extravagantly against a tree, then tipped his head, listening for the gurgling of a larger stream. He could hear the clanking and trundling of the seemingly endless parade of refugees down the road towards Holmgard, but nothing else. "Where's the stream, then, boy?" he asked the horse, more as something to say than as a serious question. To his surprise, Janos nodded his proud, white head and led the way deeper into the tongue of forest. Lone Wolf followed, startled. This was indeed a special animal. The stream was no more than a hundred yards away; in fact, it was less a stream than a small river, perhaps three yards across. The reason he hadn't been able to hear it was that its deep waters ran tranquilly between its banks. They looked temptingly cool, and with hardly a moment's thought he shucked off his clothes. "Guard these," he said sternly to Janos, and he could have sworn the horse understood the command. He plunged head-first into the stream, struggling downward with his limbs until he came to lie on its stony bed. The rounded pebbles pressed reassuringly against his chest and thighs. The light was greenly muted down here. He could see small silver fish darting away from him. Muddy-looking green and brown aquatic plants waved lazily in the waves created by his arrival. He held his breath as long as he could, and then stood up, breaking the surface in a joyous fountain. He smiled at Janos, who was standing protectively by his heap of tumbled clothing; the horse gazed back without any apparent emotion. Lone Wolf scrubbed the water all over his body,

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feeling it ease his muscles, stiffened after the previous day's combat and by his night spent sleeping on the hard forest floor. The first contact of the water with the cut on his forehead had made him gasp with pain, but soon that ebbed; the dried blood momentarily coloured his palm brown as he washed it away. He spent longer than he'd planned bathing in the stream; it seemed to have been forever since he'd allowed himself the luxury of sheer hedonistic pleasure. If he'd thought about it he would have told himself he deserved the period of purging, but as it was he was simply caught up in the pleasure of the moment. After a while Janos kicked Lone Wolf's clothing into the stream, and he understood what the horse was trying to tell him: washing the body alone was not enough; his tunic and cape stank even worse than he did himself. He pummelled the cloth eagerly in the water, watching as specks of solidified ichor floated away greenly with the current. When finally he climbed out of the stream he felt as if not only his body but his mind had been cleansed. He laid out his clothes to dry and attended to his belt and his weapons. He squatted on the stream's bank to polish away the detritus from the blades of his sword, axe and dagger using handfuls of long grass. Last of all was his belt, whose leather had been badly stained. He rubbed away at it until he was satisfied the last traces of ichor had been eliminated. The early-morning sun had failed to dry his clothes. He wrung them out as best he could and climbed into them nonetheless, shuddering at their clamminess: at last he was remembering that there was a certain degree of urgency about his mission. His belt and weapons he dried more carefully on the grass; he had no wish that those sharp blades should be blunted by rust. He scrambled eagerly onto Janos's broad back, and the horse carried him willingly towards the road. There Lone Wolf imperiously demanded that the line of fleeing peasants make room for him to cross. Once on the far side of the road he turned Janos's head southwards, and dug in his heels. The horse responded with a burst of speed which almost threw Lone Wolf from the saddle. Miles flowed by under Janos's fleet hooves. Often the trudging refugees looked up at Lone Wolf with hardly concealed envy; one or two of them spat at him as he went by. "Lucky we'd be," their expressions seemed to be saying, "if we could have a fine, white stallion like that youngster has." Lone Wolf sympathized with them, but there was nothing he could do to alter their condition.

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He made such good speed that eventually he outstripped the column of refugees. The road was open to him, and Janos began to gallop even faster. Resignedly, Lone Wolf accepted the fact that tomorrow his muscles would be even stiffer than they had been this morning. His clothes were slowly tightening around his body, as if he were being held carefully but firmly by a pair of hands covered in slick, cold sweat. He was doing something less than riding Janos; he was holding himself in place while the horse sped along a road which was obviously familiar. Janos was ready to take each bend before it appeared; sparks sprang from his shoes whenever his feet encountered a pebble in the road. There was a long hill ahead. The gradient hardly slowed Janos -- if anything the horse's pace increased. At the crest of the ridge, though, Janos halted, allowing Lone Wolf his first sight of the city of Holmgard. 3 In the past there were poets who wrote lyrically of the graces of Sommerlund's capital city. Nowadays there were few who were willing to take up the pen. A hundred yards thick the city walls might be -- far thicker than even those of Toran -- and some of its public buildings were indeed imposing and impressive, but Holmgard had gone to seed over the centuries since its foundation. A succession of kings had viewed with complacent equanimity the formation of crime-ridden shanty towns around Holmgard's periphery, just within the walls. Here life was cheap, and quite frequently short. King Ulnar -- the fifth of that name -- had had qualms about the growth of misery in his capital but, like all of his predecessors, he had done little or nothing about it. This was hardly surprising. Everywhere he went he was escorted by a select troop of guards; they did not permit the king to see anything that might offend his royal eyes. He saw only the crowds of adulatory citizens who cheered his public appearances, and it never occurred to him that the inhabitants of the shanty towns might find any fault with his rule. And indeed perhaps they did not -- they were too busy trying to survive. They hunted rats and mice for food; the life-expectancy of a dog or a cat was short. There was even some evidence of cannibalism -- though nothing had ever been satisfactorily proven. Lone Wolf could see nothing of the city's miseries as he surveyed it from the crest of the hill to which Janos had brought him. He saw its glimmering spires and its mighty grey-white walls; he saw the banners fluttering from its tallest buildings; he saw the city's proud ramparts, where

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the king's guards patrolled. He saw also, from his vantage point, that there was a dark stain spreading across the land towards Holmgard. A vast army of doomwolves, giaks slouching astride them, was advancing on the city. If for no other reason, he was required urgently in the city for his ability with the axe and sword. He spurred Janos forwards; if the horse could still keep up the speed he'd displayed earlier on the road, there was just the chance that Lone Wolf might reach Holmgard in time to help its defenders against the Darklord's army. But almost immediately he had second thoughts and pulled Janos to a halt. His heart was instructing him to ride to the rescue of Holmgard. But his intellect speedily persuaded him that this was unrealistic. A single warrior, no matter how brave, could have no chance of repelling the ruthless advance of Zagarna's troops. It was much more likely he'd be caught by the doomwolves and giaks before he'd reached the city's gates; his life would be wasted . . . for no sensible purpose. To follow the road would be to invite death. He searched the sky for kraan, but they were remarkable by their absence. This was perplexing. He could only assume the Darklord's flying army was largely occupied elsewhere in Sommerlund. Still, the lack of observation from the air opened up new options to him. There was a broad river directly ahead, a tributary of the Eledil; the Eledil flowed directly past the city's walls. If he could find a boat or even just a sturdy log he could allow the current to carry him safely to Holmgard. On the other hand, this would mean abandoning Janos -- which he was increasingly loath to do. The final alternative was not pleasant, but it seemed to be the only one. To the left of the road, and running all the way to Holmgard, was a vast cemetery. Its tombstones and mausoleums were pocked by age; he suspected from its appearance that it had belonged to a culture preceding the arrival of the Sommlending on Magnamund. He shuffled Janos over to the raddled wall which bounded the graveyard. Twisted trees and densely tangled undergrowth made the light beyond the wall unnaturally muted and gloomy; this effect was enhanced by a bizarre silver mist which shrouded the place. Despite the poor visibility, he saw a pair of bats dancing in the air in their eerily silent way. The tombstone nearest to him, a crumbling monolith of orange-red shale, was covered with inscriptions in a script he did not recognize.

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He shivered. The dense cover of the graveyard would conceal him as he journeyed to the city, but every cell of his body was telling him the place was taboo -- hallowed ground. Janos bent his head forward to look over the wall, and immediately recoiled. The movement of the horse's shoulders rocked Lone Wolf. The youth recalled some of the lessons he had learnt during his training at the Kai Monastery, and seemed to hear the voice of Storm Hawk in his ears. "Remember, all of you," the old tutor had said, "that fear is a useful tool. You can take it and use it to your advantage. If you can recognize a fear and embrace it to you, your courage will be augmented by the knowledge of why you're being courageous. Your senses will be sharper, because all the time you'll be alert to the dangers that may surround you." The fear that Lone Wolf felt as he looked upon this ancient cemetery was easy enough for him to identify. He saw that the place was alien to him, constructed by a culture far distanced from any he had ever encountered during his short life. But, more than that, or perhaps for that very reason, he dreaded in his very soul the possibility that, among those strangely carved stones, the living dead might be wakeful. He shook himself in irritation. He wasn't normally superstitious, and he couldn't be sure where this irrational suspicion had come from; but he was honest enough to admit to himself that it was making cold, insectile limbs dance up and down his spine. Dutifully, he accepted the fear and felt the additional strength it gave to him. He patted Janos, trying to convey something of this, but the horse still tapped nervously with his hooves on the road's stony surface. Lone Wolf steered Janos to the other side of the road, and then a few yards further. The horse seemed relieved, as if thankful to his master for having abandoned any plans to enter the sacred ground. But then Lone Wolf turned him to face the wall. "Jump, boy," he hissed into Janos's ear, and he dug in his heels. Seconds later Janos was soaring over the tumbledown wall to land with a slithering of hooves in the graveyard of the ancients. 4 A girl called Qinefer was running, her long, crinkly brown hair whipping behind her. She had seen her parents and her younger brother ripped to pieces by

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kraan, her mother multiply raped by giaks. She herself had been lucky; sleeping in the sunlight, she had been ignored by the murderous spawn. She had been woken by the screams of her family, and had without thinking rolled into concealment under the raised wooden floor of the house. There she'd cowered, trembling uncontrollably, weeping as she saw what was happening, knowing she was unable to do anything to stop it. Her father had accounted for a giak, spitting it with the pitchfork before the kraan seized him, and after the spawn had done their filthy business and left the farm she'd recovered the dead beast's jagged sword. Her lips moving with terror and revulsion, she'd deliberately ignored the mangled flesh that was scattered about the farmyard while she put the sword in her belt. She'd vaulted the fence with an expression of chill determination on her face. Some of her hair had been pasted to her forehead by the seeping sweat of her recent fear. As she ran, her brown eyes were wide above her broad, dark face, her lips pulled back from her white teeth. She had a single intent: the slaying of as many as possible of the spawn that had killed her family. She'd been running for an hour before she came across a pair of giaks. They'd been preparing to roast a homesteader alive; they knew nothing as her sword twice plunged lethally. She kicked the bodies aside impatiently as she untied the cords that had been binding the elderly farmer. He tried to thank her, but there was a look of wildness in her eyes which told him she was too far away from reality for the conventions of human conversation. Without a word she left him. The last he saw of her was her strong shoulders pumping as she sprinted away across the fields. In the hours since then she'd increased her tally of giaks to around a dozen; she'd also killed a kraan, but that had been more by luck than by good judgement. She'd collected further weapons, too; now she was equipped not just with a giak sword but also with a Sommlending two-handed axe that she could barely lift. Welcome to the fold, said a voice in her mind. Qinefer ignored it. We'll meet sometime, maybe soon, said the voice, and it would be nice if we'd introduced ourselves beforehand. Still there was no response from Qinefer. Oh, well, came the voice, a pleasure delayed is a pleasure enhanced. I think.

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5 Inside the cemetery the light was even worse than it had appeared when Lone Wolf had looked into it from the far side of the wall. Swirling clouds of fog blotted out the sun from the sky, so that all the colours were muted to a uniform grey. There was also an unnatural coldness about the place; Lone Wolf felt as if he were riding through floes of ice. Janos wanted to have none of it. They'd gone no more than fifty yards when the horse pulled up and swivelled his head to one side, looking over his shoulder to plead with his master. Lone Wolf initially shook his head, then took pity on the animal. "Of course, my friend. I've no right to take you further into this place. Thank you for carrying me this far." He jumped to the ground. "Take your freedom now." He slapped the great white steed on its armoured rump, and Janos understood the message; the horse looked him straight in the eyes and then trotted easily off towards the cemetery wall. Lone Wolf's eyes followed the retreating horse with regret: losing Janos meant not only that his speed over the ground would be severely curtailed but also that he had lost a friend. He allowed himself a moment of sentiment -- a few thoughts of what might have been -- but then he shook his head angrily and pressed forwards on foot. Much of the undergrowth in the graveyard consisted of a thorny briar of a type he'd never seen before. It snatched at his cloak and his tunic, grazing his legs and slowing his progress. He did his best to avoid contact with it, but nevertheless he suffered many scratches. Aside from the swishing of the briar, there was a silence so profound that he felt as if he could have reached out and touched it; soon his ears were telling him that somewhere in the distance there were voices whispering, but he dismissed this as an aural illusion. The clogged air seemed to be pressing down on his shoulders as he strode among the tombstones. He found a path at last, and followed it, unnervingly aware that he could see only a few yards in front of him. The omnipresent mist seemed to him to be seeping up from the graves themselves. Still there was the illusion of distant whispering. At one point the path was spanned by an arch with grey, dead-looking briars coiling up its two pillars. Just as he passed under the arch the ground beneath him collapsed. Screaming, he fell in a jumble of earth and crumbled stones.

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He landed on his back at the bottom of a pit, the impact thumping the breath out of him. For a few seconds he lost consciousness. When he came to he saw the unnaturally coloured sunlight eyeing him through the gaping hole above. He was dimly aware of his surroundings. More immediately, he recognized that without assistance there was no way that he could climb back up towards the daylight: the chimney through which he'd fallen was at least fifteen feet deep, and the walls were sheer. He looked around him and couldn't see anything that might help him. In the subterranean chamber there seemed to be nothing but an age-corroded sarcophagus, its pitted stone lid carrying the semblance of some longdeparted nobleman. The figure looked inhuman. But he could see also that an arched tunnel led off into the darkness. He sensed there was Evil in the very atmosphere of this place. Without stopping to think about it, he ran towards the gloomy opening. The walls of the narrow, claustrophobic tunnel were dank and slimy. As Lone Wolf pushed ahead into the darkness he could feel the clammy tendrils of unknown plants brushing his face and legs. The air down here tasted as if it had been breathed out decades ago by a spawn creature and never replaced; he found he was breathing rapidly and shallowly as his lungs tried to cope with the lack of oxygen. The pallid light that filtered into the crypt was soon lost far behind him; he was moving in utter darkness. He remembered the burrowcrawler he had met in the earlier tunnel, and wished he hadn't. He pulled his axe from his belt and held it in readiness. He trailed his fingers along the damp tunnel wall. Every few seconds he drew them back in disgust as they encountered one of the greasy-feeling plants growing out from the cracks between the stones; he was glad he couldn't see what he was touching. From time to time a cobweb brushed across his face, and he could feel the vibrations of the gossamer as the spiders scuttled away from him through the darkness. The tunnel divided. On one side there was nothing but a continuation of the stygian darkness to which he'd grown accustomed, but on the other there was a slight greenish glow, as if, perhaps, the passage opened out onto daylight many hundred of yards away. Instinctively he moved towards the light. It wasn't enough for him to see by, but it served as a goal. Still his outstretched hand kept brushing against the slimy plants protruding from the tunnel walls. His natural reaction was to suck his fingers each time this happened, but he forced

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himself not to succumb to the temptation: for all he knew the exudations of these plants or fungi were poisons. Once he rubbed his hand on his tunic, but after that he simply endured the revolting feeling of the slime between his fingers: it would be all too easy, later, absentmindedly to brush a finger against his clothing and then put it to his mouth. The passage along which he'd been walking ended in a flight of stone stairs that led down into a large, gloomy chamber. At last he discovered the origins of the green glow, which had been intensifying as he'd made his way through the passage. Two rows of stone plinths framed a walkway between where he now stood and an ornate brick archway on the far side of the chamber; the door of the arch hung drunkenly on its hinges. On each plinth a skull had been reverentially positioned. The skulls, he immediately saw, were not human. They had belonged to creatures with forward-protruding jaws and swept-back foreheads. Presumably these creatures -- or, at least, their fellows -- had created this cemetery, where they buried their dead with human-like grief . . . or at least some analogy to mourning. Lone Wolf realized he was making assumptions about beings he had never encountered who had lived in a culture that was totally alien to him. Perhaps the skulls had instead been placed here gleefully by those who'd carried out brutal sacrifices of their own kind. The initial sight of this macabre display had made his heart leap uneasily in his chest, but now he looked at the skulls with equanimity; their green glow was not threatening -- in fact, the light was helpful to him as he made his way across the chamber. He smiled at the skulls, jauntily tipping his hood as a signal of respect and gratitude. He walked forward easily, his feet pulling through the thick dust. His confidence was short-lived. As he walked, the skulls slowly turned, so that the glowing, empty sockets where once their eyes had been traced his movements. There was a susurration of the dehydrated air, as if desiccated throats were exchanging their parched opinions; Lone Wolf remembered the similar sound which had partly impinged upon his consciousness when he'd been making his nervous way through the cemetery, only minutes before. He was very aware of the fact that he was treading where no human had dared to tread before, that he was intruding into genuinely alien territory. Crack! At first he didn't know where the noise had come from. He'd become used to nothing but the muffled sound of his own footsteps. He turned.

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One of the skulls was splitting open. As he watched, a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. A skull on the other side of him was likewise dividing down the middle. Crypt spawn! In the Kai Monastery the young initiates had been shown pictures of these creatures, perhaps the vilest of all the products of Helgedad's dungeons. Their mouths were toothless, yet could suck the soul from a mortal. With swift movements of his axe he shattered the skulls which had yet to split. Their green glow faded, making it hard for him to see the batwinged forms of the spawn that had already freed themselves. He swung blindly, and was rewarded by a feeling of squishiness as his axe cut right through one of his enemies. Then there was a sucking at his throat. He plucked at the creature, and it began to disintegrate in his hands. He threw it to the floor and stamped on it; it exploded under his foot's powerful blows. The light was now almost nonexistent. If he tried to fight the spawn for very much longer he was surely doomed. He chopped another of his attackers in half, but then fled rapidly towards the arched doorway he'd seen on entering the chamber. He slammed the door behind him, and heard the surviving crypt spawn battering themselves mushily against its sturdy wood. Once again, Lone Wolf was in pitch darkness. Or was it totally dark? Somewhere up ahead of him there seemed, again, to be a glimmer of light. He tucked his axe back into his belt and half-walked, half-crawled towards this new source of illumination. The last time he'd made his way towards a light he'd led himself into a cavern occupied by crypt spawn; this time he was determined to be more cautious. He dropped to his hands and knees. The dust was gritty and itchy between his fingers. A thought touched his mind but he ignored it as he worked slowly forwards. He was conscious of the loudness of his own breathing. Slowly the light ahead of him grew brighter. He cut his finger on the sharp blade of his axe, and he whispered a curse. The acrid smell of his body almost conquered the mustiness of the corridor; the effect of his bathe in the stream that morning had soon worn off. It struck him forcefully that, only a few days before, he'd been an

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innocent youngster. Now he was an accomplished killer. He'd exulted as bodies had fallen before him. The transformation had occurred without him being really aware of it. He remembered the person he'd been until recently, but only with difficulty; that youth was a stranger to him now. Perhaps a fool, perhaps naive, but nevertheless someone he would rather like to have known. Maybe the two of them could have been friends. But it was too late now, of course: the boy who'd been Silent Wolf had vanished to make way for the young man who was Lone Wolf. And Lone Wolf had seen sights and done deeds which would have been anathema to the inexperienced Silent Wolf. Immediately ahead of him was the source of the light. Once again the corridor opened out into a great low-ceilinged chamber: this time the illumination came from a pair of black candles set either side of a massive stone doorway. He was immediately suspicious of the scene. Who could have lit the candles? They'd hardly burned down at all, which meant someone must have been here scant minutes before. Part of him was reassured when he noticed there was no off-run of spilled wax; clearly these were not normal candles. He put his hand close to one of the apparent flames, and found, as he'd begun to suspect, that it gave off no heat at all. The candles could have been shining here for years. However, this knowledge compensated only partly for the chilling recognition that here he was confronted by magic, and his instincts told him that it was not Left Hand magic. He shivered and took a look around him. The stones of the subterranean chamber were large and ponderous, seeming to press in on him. They were covered with hieroglyphs and other ancient engravings -- basrelief images of weirdly shaped skulls, human sacrifices, disembowellings, tortures, violent death and torment in all their cruellest guises . . . The flickering of the candles made some of the carvings seem to move: here a skull winked wickedly at him; there an executioner's axe wavered preparatory to striking down upon the neck of the condemned. This was an evil place; he knew it not simply because of all the portrayals of death but also because he could feel its unnaturally warm, fondling air pushing in towards him from every side. He heard a soundless, wordless voice; it seemed to be at the same time both booming, strident speech a million miles away and a whisper close beside him; it was arid and ancient . . . and it reeked of infinite power. He wanted to get away from here, and he knew it would be futile to go

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back. He must go forwards. Timorously he advanced up a few crumbling steps towards the mighty stone door. He could feel his heartbeat. Sweat from his forehead ran down through his eyebrows and stingingly into his eyes; he rubbed it away as best he could with the back of his hand. Behind the door could be freedom. Behind the door could be creatures born from infernal zones of the mind of Naar. He pulled his sword from its sheath, twitching it agitatedly, wishing his palm were not so clammily slick. The door was held fast by a bronze lock whose face was, like the walls of the sepulchre, sculpted into images of dread. An equally ornate pin served as a bolt. There was also a large, ostentatious keyhole which took the form of the distorted mouth of some creature out of nightmare. If the door was locked he was trapped in this string of underground chambers. He wiped his right hand on his tunic and gripped his sword more firmly. Cautiously he pulled the decorated pin out of the lock. At first he drew it slowly. When it was half out he jerked it the rest of the way. A deafeningly loud bang threw him backwards, so that he stumbled uncontrollably down the stairs, landing flat on his back on the dusty floor. The reflex reaction saved his life. A vast block of granite crashed from the ceiling, shattering the steps where he'd been standing only an instant before. The wind knocked out of him, it took him a few seconds to realize that the room was filled with daylight -- grey and reluctant daylight, to be sure, but daylight just the same. Where the granite block had been there was now a rectangular hole in the ceiling. It was through this that the light was coming. The door remained stubbornly closed. He picked himself up, still breathing heavily, and collected his sword from the corner where it had flown as he'd fallen. The air was thick with dust and minute rock particles. The black candles and their wooden stands had been reduced to smithereens; one of the flames lay on the debris-strewn floor, still blinking intermittently on and off. He climbed up on the massive chunk of fallen granite and looked above him. Through this new-formed chimney he could see the cloudy sky, but between him and freedom stood a mat of thorny graveweed -- as well as a fifteen-foot climb. Fortunately, though, there were chinks between the stones forming the chimney's walls, cracks that might be just wide enough to accommodate the blade of his axe.

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He had no alternative but to attempt the ascent. Reaching overhead, he lodged his axe as far above him as he could, and shook it to see that the blade was settled firmly. He took one last look around the chamber and eagerly began to climb the axe's haft, working handover-hand, grunting with the effort. He forced the fingers of his right hand into a horizontal crack just above where his axe-blade had come to rest, and slowly allowed his arm to take the weight. Within seconds he was danglingly precariously as he made himself look upwards, trying to find a new home for the axe. On his first attempt he failed, and the blade came skiddingly down, totally out of control and narrowly missing his head. He had visions of falling, of being trapped underground with a broken back, lying there in agony as starvation and thirst slowly sapped the life from him. Or maybe the crypt spawn would find him and speed the process . . . His second venture was less ambitious, and this time he succeeded in anchoring the blade firmly. He began to climb once more. The worst part of the ascent was the last, when he was pushing himself up through the tangled mass of graveweed. There was little he could do to protect himself from the slashing thorns. As much as he could, he kept his eyes closed; the sensation of climbing blind, feeling the barbs tearing at his clothes and body and face, was painful, unpleasant and terrifying, but it was better than risking more permanent loss of sight. After what seemed like hours, he was still fighting his way out of the bush, but at least he had his feet on solid ground and could use his sword and axe. And, finally, he was free of the briar. Exhaustedly he leant on his axe and looked around him. Small snakes squirmed away from under him in fright. High above, dark shapes moved: his first thought was that these were kraan, but then he recognized them as hideously deformed birds. The stunted trees were naked of leaves and many were dead. Wraiths of the strange, silver mist hung motionless, shrouding the mausoleums and the trees. The air around him was a pallid greyish-yellow, the sun merely a brighter area of the sky, but Lone Wolf breathed deeply, luxuriating in the fact that this was air which had not been trapped for thousands of years below the ground. He had emerged a couple of hundred yards away from a gateway beyond whose arch he could see brightness -- the brightness of the outside world. As soon as he'd recovered his breath he jogged along the time-worn stone path towards it, looking warily from side to side in case of lurking dangers.

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He reached the gate safely and, without allowing himself any time for second thoughts, ran through it.

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9 Victories and Defeats 1 The morning before, Qinefer had been nothing more than a dutiful daughter, helping her parents as they worked to extract a meagre living from the small farmstead which her father had bought many years before, when first he had come from Cloeasia to make a new life for himself in Sommerlund. Now she was a warrior. She'd lost count of the number of giaks that had fallen to her weaponry; confusedly she wondered if perhaps she ought to keep some kind of record, but she knew that when she was killing her mind lost all its rationality, and afterwards all she could recall was the sight of streaming fluids and severed limbs and heads. And wild joy. Her mahogany-brown face and her black crinkled hair were streaked with grey giak ichor and her own sweat. She had covered many miles since leaving her home to exact her own personal revenge on the hosts of the Darklord. Her clothing was in tatters, although she had received no flesh wounds. She leapt a drystone dyke and found herself in a lush triangular field. A small herd of cattle was grazing in one corner. A few of the animals looked up to examine her warily, but most went on placidly cropping at the grass, their tails lazily looping from side to side. A couple of small, brown birds were unconcernedly perched on one cow's back, pecking at fleas and other parasites. It was hard to believe, looking at this scene, that the land all around was being ravaged by war. The field was crossed by a stream. Its sluggish waters didn't look too inviting, but Qinefer didn't care. After making a final check that there were no enemies in sight, she stripped off her homespun grey and brown clothing and splashed in. The chill of the water thrilled her body, covering her instantly with goose-pimples. She splashed it over her belly, breasts and shoulders, then sank down and worked away industriously at her armpits and face. As she did so, some of the madness began to melt from her eyes, and she found herself almost smiling. She rolled over into a sitting position and allowed her lower legs to float up to the surface, her toes forming a neat brown row just above the water. She arched her back so that her hair trailed in the water; supporting herself with one hand, she ran her fingers through it, teasing out the knots. As she whipped her head back out of the water, sending a glittering cascade of droplets in a high arc ahead of her, she let out

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a whoop. While washing her body she seemed also to be cleansing her soul. Pushing her hair away from her face she found she was looking at a small boy perched on the rim of the stream, his bare feet dangling in the water. He had a pink caricature of a face smudged with mud, and a nose that was almost as snub as her own. He winked. "Who're you?" he said. "My name's Qinefer. I live -- lived -- a few miles over in that direction." She gestured vaguely, fixing the smile to her face; the very thought of where home had once been had brought back memories of the deaths of her family. "What's yours?" "Worm," he said. "At least, that's what everyone calls me. My full name's Wormwald, but only my grandmother uses it." "Hello, Worm." "Hello, Qinefer." She went on washing herself. She was aware of the boy's bright gaze on her breasts, but was unconcerned by it. Her family had never been much concerned by the nudity taboo prevalent throughout most of the rest of Sommerlund. "I live near here," he said. "My mother and father own this field, and the cows -- did you see the cows?" "Yes. They looked excellent cows to me." "They are. My father says they're the finest milkers in the land. I don't think my mother agrees with him. She says they're a scrawny bunch of scragbags that are milking us, rather than us milking them." His hands and face moved animatedly as he talked; in an incongruous contrast, his voice was very level and expressionless. Perhaps it was the local accent. "What do you think?" she said. "I agree with my dad. I like cows. They don't try to bite you, like the dogs do when they're in a bad mood, or scratch you, like the cat almost always does when I pull her tail." "That's a good reason for liking cows," Qinefer agreed. There was a short silence. Qinefer stood up and began to scrub between her legs. "You don't mind me watching you?" said Worm nervously "No. Why should I?" "Well," his voice lost most of its confidence, "you're a lady and I'm . . . um . . . a man." Qinefer made an effort not to giggle. The boy couldn't be more than

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about eight. "That's all right," she said. "You're very pretty." "Why, thank you, kind sir. That's very gentlemanly and chivalrous of you to say so." She smiled at him through a fringe of water-studded hair. "You don't look too bad yourself," she lied. "In a few years' time I guess you'll be a very handsome young man." "Can I bring my friend to watch, too?" Qinefer was startled, and frowned a little. She didn't mind this little boy, but she'd no wish to become the centre of lascivious attraction for a host of snot-nosed kids. "How old is he?" she said at last. "Same age as me." "Oh, well . . . OK, I suppose. But just the one." "Right." He grinned at her, and then turned to call over his shoulder: "Gog! Gog, come on over here!" Qinefer had more or less finished washing. "You wouldn't happen to have something I could use as a towel?" she said, realizing as she spoke that it was a ludicrously optimistic request. "I'm afraid not," said Worm, and his voice had changed a little, coarsening and becoming more guttural. She looked at him curiously: there seemed to be something different about his face, too. Maybe it was simply an effect of the light. "Here's Gog now," said Worm. Another figure appeared on the bank beside him. A giak. "I'm sorry, Qinefer. I told you . . . lies just now. You'll understand why in just a few moments." The shape of the boy began to shimmer and flow. His body grew to twice the size it had been before, and his face became a haunting parody of a human face. His clothes transmuted into a shroud-like cloak. "You see," said the alien mask with hoarse difficulty, as if the words were spiky shells sticking in its throat, "I don't really live near here at all -my home's on the other side of the Durncrag Mountains. Nice place, really . . . but I don't think you'd like it. Kaag, it's called." "You're a helghast," she hissed. "Oh, yes. I should have thought that . . . perfectly obvious by now. Little boys do not normally change their shape like this. Didn't you know?" The unsubtle sarcasm in the creature's creaking tones brought a chill to

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Qinefer's body that was quite unlike the coldness of the water. She looked at the two of them there on the bank. "Worm" was still seated, which meant that he was the more vulnerable of them; the giak was standing -- and, moreover, standing directly between her and where she had dropped her weapons. There was no way she could bypass it, especially since her early movements would be hampered by the fact that she was standing in water. "I suppose you mean to kill me," she said. "Exactly. Gog and I look forward to the experience," said the helghast. "Why?" "Well," and the helghast began to chuckle rustily, "it just so happens that my friend and I . . . enjoy killing human beings -- especially naked female ones, especially when they screech and scream a lot. Besides, the Darklords -- you've heard of them?" "No." "Oh, well, tell you all about them while you're dying. Anyway, the Archlord of them all -- Zagarna -- has ordered us to exterminate the Sommlending species. So, we get it both ways. The more humans we kill, the more our master is pleased with us and the more fun we have." "Not much fun for the human beings," muttered Qinefer sourly. Her arms were trembling, but not from the cold: she was terrified. Also, though, there was a certain exhilaration drifting through her. She squatted down in the water again, supporting herself on her hands. She hoped she looked as relaxed as she didn't feel. "I don't plan to leave this stream quite yet," she said lazily. "So, if you want to kill me, you'd better come and get me." Just as she'd hoped, the helghast gestured the giak forwards. As Gog advanced shamblingly into the water, Qinefer got slowly to her feet. In her right hand there was a sharp stone she'd selected from the bed of the sluggish stream. She took one pace forward, forcing her foot through the water, and struck upwards, catching the giak directly under its knobbly chin. The pointed stone went deep into Gog's mouth cavity, nailing its tongue to the roof of its palate. It wailed with a hoarse shrillness, and ichor flooded from between its lips. The giak tumbled to its knees, and then fell face-first into the water. It was still twitching as Qinefer removed its sword from its hand and flung it with perfect precision to strike the helghast directly in the centre of the forehead.

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The helghast clutched at the blade, then turned and ran. It left behind it nothing but a shriek of maddened frustration, which the breeze swiftly snatched and dispersed over the surrounding fields, and the giak's sword, which thudded to the ground. Qinefer was shaking all over, from reaction to her exertions as much as from the release of her terror. Swiftly she washed her thighs, which had been spattered with ichor as the giak died, and then she pulled herself out of the stream. She dried herself by smoothing away the water from her body with her hands and then running energetically up and down. She climbed into her clothes, feeling them itchy and uncomfortable against her refreshed skin. She looked at her selection of weapons, and decided to take with her only the pair of giak swords. She was a bit fed up about having to leave the twohanded axe behind, but it slowed her down and she sensed that soon speed of movement might become important. These two foul creatures would not have been travelling all on their own: somewhere nearby there must be others of their kind. A grin came to her face. It could not have been further distanced from the smiles which she had smiled while playing in the water. Even the bravest of warriors would have quailed before it. Once again she was back on the killing trail. She loped easily towards the far side of the field. 2 A single Darklord can, to put it as mildly as possible, be intimidating: the mere sight of Zagarna could drive a human being to insanity and probably death. Nineteen Darklords gathered together was a spectacle so far outside the bounds of normal reality as instantly to stop the heart of any mortal who gazed upon it. Yet Zagarna had chosen to introduce Vonotar -- his "pet wizard", the Archlord of Darkness somewhat patronizingly thought -- to exactly such a bizarre assemblage. Carag, Vonotar's dutiful giak adherent, as ever stood respectfully at hand. Vonotar looked around the great courtroom of Kaag, his expression nonchalant. His eyes flared briefly blue, but then reverted to their customary orange-red. He was a dwarf among the Darklords, yet all of them could feel the force of his presence: this puny, crooked human possessed powers greater than any of them -- except perhaps Zagarna -- could even conceive, let alone exercise.

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Surrounded by their entourages of Nadziranim, xaghash and grunting drakkarim, the eighteen lesser Darklords looked at the diminutive figure with undisguised loathing. He responded by brushing his fingers though his thin, white hair; after a moment he smiled frostily and gave them a studiedly casual wave, as if he were receiving a public accolade. "Our conquest of Sommerlund is progressing well," bubbled Zagarna with all the ingenuous intensity of false confidence, "and this has come about for one reason: the magician Vonotar has joined our ranks." The Archlord drew himself up to his full height, some twenty feet, and looked out imposingly on the others; the pedestal on which he stood, beside his mighty throne, gave him the advantage of superior height. He was speaking from the mouth in his head; his secondary mouth, located in his abdomen, was eagerly chewing at a shoulder of raw giak. "Oh, Archlord of death and destruction," said one of the assembled Darklords, "all of this may be true -- and why should we follow your commands if we did not believe you speak truth? -- but it offends our senses to think that this feeble mortal can be of any assistance to us at all." Zagarna looked venomously at the speaker. This was Gnaag, Darklord of Mozgoar, and for long Zagarna had suspected him of coveting the throne of Archlordship. Gnaag's flowery language and apparent obsequiousness could not disguise the fact that he was aiming a deft arrow towards what he perceived as a chink in Zagarna's armour. There had been no precedent for an alliance between a Darklord -- especially an Archlord -- and someone of mortal heritage. The Darklords were instinctively suspicious of all breaches of tradition. Zagarna was only too well aware that, should the other eighteen Darklords ever find themselves capable of uniting against him, they might seriously threaten his domination, and possibly even unseat him. He was also confident that they were divided among themselves, constantly forming splinter groups which rapidly dissolved before the formation of new factions, which in turn broke up and . . . Naar had originally created twenty Darklords, but long ago one of these, Vashna, the mightiest of them all, had died at the hand of King Ulnar I of Sommerlund at the Battle of the Maakengorge; the essence of Vashna was still imprisoned in the gorge, and it was conceivable that at some time the key to its release could be discovered. The physical appearances of the Darklords had been designed by Naar to reflect their mental characteristics. Zagarna's vast, blue, toothed and clawed form visibly demonstrated his condition of unceasing rage and his constant lust to kill. Gnaag's insectile face indicated his nimbleness of thought and action: his eyes were all-seeing

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and his intellect almost all-comprehending. Kraagenskül had a visage of naked bone behind which two large red eyes glowed fierily: of all the Darklords, he was the one most capable of calculated rationality and at the same time of the most mindless cruelty. Each of the Darklords was surrounded by a platoon of Nadziranim, xaghash and drakkarim. The Nadziranim, the Right Hand magicians, derived their considerable abilities from the Plane of Darkness, the dimension of existence that was Naar's stronghold; their purpose was to create magics and magical weapons that could be used by whichever Darklord they owed their allegiance to. Unable to journey outside the Darklands -- temperate climes were lethal to them, as indeed they normally were to the Darklords themselves -- the Nadziranim were nevertheless very powerful. The xaghash were repulsively reptilian creatures; although they were merely lesser Darklords, their physical strength was, by any mortal standard, immense. Although they were not possessed of any great intellect, they conducted constant minor intrigues among themselves in the hope of securing their advancement within the retinue of their Darklord. The drakkarim were roughly humanoid, although their faces were ghastly travesties of human features. They were ferocious in war, so captivated by the ecstasy of slaughter that often they hacked each other down. Their race had early on allied itself to the forces of Darkness, and hence the Darklords each surrounded themselves with a number of drakkarim: the views of these "advisers" were rarely heeded, but their presence was deemed essential for cosmetic reasons, so that the drakkarim species as a whole could be kept in loyal subservience. It was to a gathering of several hundred of these various beings that Zagarna addressed his grim stare. How dared even the greatest of them doubt his assurances? The spell was broken by Vonotar. "He's right, friends," said the magician. "Without me you've got no hope of capturing Sommerlund and suppressing the Sommlending." He walked stiffly across the floor to confront Gnaag. The Darklord's multi-faceted eyes shimmered. "I could," said Vonotar, "at this very moment turn you into a warmblooded mammal, so that the heat in this courtroom would instantly shrivel you up into a cinder. The thought which I would have to shape in order to do this would be a very simple one." The Darklord Gnaag hissed in disbelief.

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"Oh, well," said Vonotar lightly. He pointed at one of Gnaag's attendant xaghash. It screamed briefly, and within moments was nothing but a few glowing embers drifting in the air. There was tumult. That a Sommlending should apparently be respected by a Darklord was unthinkable; that a mortal should go further and defy a Darklord was akin to blasphemy. Why did Naar not strike down this upstart at once? Some of the Nadziranim aimed mental darts of venom at Vonotar's bent figure, but these had no effect. The magician giggled. "One thing which Zagarna has yet to tell you," he said, "is that, just as I'm the key to your conquest of Sommerlund, I have the power to raze Kaag and all your other cities -- yes, even Helgedad itself -- to the ground. Shall we see?" He waved his hand, shaped a thought, and on the floor in front of them created a miniature model of the Darklands, some twenty feet across and perfect in every detail. "Now," said Vonotar, "I would like you, Gnaag, to order all of your Nadziranim to save this land you see in front of you while I seek to destroy it. They can use any form of magic -- every last necromantic trick and device -- that they wish." The wraith-like Nadziranim focused their attentions on the model. A bubble of pink magical energy appeared around it. Blue and green flashes raced through the superheated air towards Vonotar, who was totally unaffected and made a great demonstration of the fact by sticking his little finger in his ear, screwing it around busily, then drawing it out to study with exaggerated interest the yellow blob of earwax on the nail. Several of the Darklords took a step towards him, but then thought better of their actions. "You see," said Vonotar easily, "you've given this tiny version of your land the semblance of safety, using all of the powers available to your Nadziranim. But still it's vulnerable to one person -- me." As he spoke, the miniature Kaag went up in flames. Helgedad sank into the pool of molten lava which surrounded that great city. Lake Ghargon, over to the west of the territory, abruptly evaporated in a cloud of steam. A sudden earthquake reduced Aarnak to a heap of rubble. "Shall I continue?" asked Vonotar politely. "By the eyes of Naar, stop this pantomime," growled Gnaag. "We've seen enough of your fairground tricks, wizard."

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"I think little of your courtesy," said Vonotar, his bleak face contorted into a smile. He snapped his fingers and a ball of blue flame descended upon the model, engulfing it entirely; as the last part of the miniature Darklands disappeared, the plasma shimmeringly vanished. There was nothing left upon the floor -- not a shred. "A mirage," said Gnaag stubbornly. "You can destroy an illusion of the Darklands, Vonotar, but that's a far cry from destroying the reality." "Indeed?" said the magician, raising an eyebrow in a quizzically mocking fashion. "Are you so very sure?" He positioned himself with both arms outstretched and the flames of his eyes became tiny white flares. His face wrinkled in concentration. "Stop!" bubbled Zagarna furiously. "Certainly, my friend," said Vonotar, relaxing. "I had no intention of destroying the Darklands. I just wanted to teach our friend here" -- he gestured at Gnaag -- "a trifling lesson. Perhaps we could now move on to other, more congenial matters?" Gnaag waved his spindly appendages in futile protest, but Zagarna held up one of his great clawed hands to demand silence. "Once upon a time there were twenty of us," he said, his liquidly muffled voice reaching out to every corner of the colossal courtroom, "but now there are only nineteen. Each of us thinks of himself as totally invulnerable, but the falsity of that conceit was demonstrated only too well when Ulnar slew our companion, Vashna. Our new ally, Vonotar, has likewise displayed his ability to destroy any one of you; he is the superior of you all." There was a rapidly subdued hubbub. "I therefore," said Zagarna, once the shouting had died down, "announce to you that once again our numbers are increased to twenty. Vonotar, I decree to you the rank of Darklord. You shall serve under me, but these others" -- the great clawed fist circled the courtroom -- "shall act as your lieutenants." The noise of fury echoed about the walls of the chamber. This move was totally without precedent in all the long centuries since Naar had first created the Darklords. An interloper elevated to a status higher than that of a true Darklord! The idea was . . . "Silence!" said Zagarna. "I will brook no disobedience to my orders!" "I bow to you, my lord," said Vonotar. "I bow to you, Vonotar, so long as you shall live," echoed Gnaag

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eventually, spitting out the words with visible difficulty. In a ragged chorus the other Darklords followed suit. "Then you may go," announced Zagarna, rising from his throne and pointing towards the courtroom's ponderous doors. Unwillingly, millingly, the crowd of Darklords and adherents began to stream away. After the last of them had gone, Zagarna winked out of existence. The real Archlord was sleeping in a far corner of Kaag, unaware of this encounter. Vonotar, who had found the effort of maintaining the illusion a strain on even his prodigious powers, collapsed wearily on the Archlord's throne. Each of the Darklords had an entourage of beings skilled in the arts of war and magic. Vonotar now had an entourage of nineteen Darklords -including Zagarna, who would never have acknowledged to himself that he was subordinate to his "pet wizard". Vonotar was master of all the forces of Darkness, and there was nothing that anyone in Magnamund could do to change that. Don't be too confident, said a voice in his mind. A model of the Darklands appeared on the floor, exactly replicating the one which Vonotar had destroyed. Hours later, he was still trying to repeat the process. 3 The shock of broad daylight, after the gloom of the Graveyard of the Ancients, made Lone Wolf recoil, throwing his hands up to protect his eyes. He collapsed to his knees, blindly thanking Ishir and Kai for sparing him from all of the evil presences he had sensed lingering in that infernal place. Fresh grass was under him; he could smell its greenness. He was motionless for a few seconds, and then he opened his eyes. Ahead of him was Holmgard, the capital city of Sommerlund and the permanent residence of the country's king. He was separated from its outer defences -- a palisade of upright timbers, each hacked to a point at the top -by nothing more than a few hundred yards of grassland and a shallow stream. A pleasant stroll, had it not been for the fact that there was also a vast army of giaks, doomwolves and drakkar assault-troopers advancing towards the city from his left. Their vanguard was at most a couple of hundred yards away

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He tensed himself and began to run. Immediately there were piercing shrieks of giak glee, and arrows filled the air. They stabbed into the ground all around him. One would have pierced him had he not stumbled on a rock. It whistled past where his head would have been; he lay sprawled and slightly winded. He pulled himself to his feet more through force of will than physical ability; started to run again, trying not to look towards the wall of advancing doomwolves; concentrated on covering the next few yards to that bush, and the next few yards after that to a boulder, and the next few yards after that to a... To where a young woman was standing, dressed in the costume of a Kai. Her silver tunic and cape were offset by her cropped red hair. She smiled at him prettily, and he pulled up short in bewilderment. "We don't have much time to talk," she said, "so excuse me if I keep this brief." "You . . . uh . . . oh . . . you --" "Yes, yes, I know it's neither the best of times nor the best of places for a social encounter, but one must tolerate such things and never, never betray to one's hostess one's surprise and dismay. Perhaps we can meet more formally some other day. Now, I'm going to disappear in a few moments and you're going to carry on running towards Holmgard." "Why did you stop me! You --" The smile vanished from her face, and she looked at him as if he were an impertinent street urchin. He observed without really noticing it that none of the giaks' arrows were landing anywhere near where the two of them stood. "I think we'll keep the sort of language you're thinking about using out of this particular conversation," she snapped. "You'll be safe after here, and it'll be thanks to me that you are. Perhaps when we next meet you'll display rather better manners. Now run." Alyss disappeared. The shouts of the giak hordes were loud in Lone Wolf's ears. Archers high on the outer defences of Holmgard bent their bows and loosed arrow after arrow towards the oncoming army. A few fell, but the progress was not noticeably slowed. The giaks responded by sending up an answering cloud of arrows, some aimed at the defenders, many more at the running figure of Lone Wolf. The dark giak arrows reached the height of their arc . . . and then reversed. As swiftly as they had travelled towards Lone Wolf, they sped

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back to transfix those who had shot them. There was immediate chaos in the army of the Darklords, with living giaks and doomwolves tumbling over the corpses of their luckless companions. The giak archers were in consternation. They couldn't make out what was going on. As always, their response to the incomprehensible was to lash out, and another cloud of arrows flew towards Lone Wolf, who was now hobbling exhaustedly towards the stream. Once again the arrows turned in their courses and sped back to slay the giaks that had launched them. To add to the melee among Zagarna's host, the archers defending Holmgard's outer fieldworks were enjoying more success now. Lone Wolf could hear them urging him on as he splashed into the stream, missed his footing, collapsed on the far bank, dragged himself wearily to his knees and then his feet, and ran totteringly forwards. Still the giaks fired their arrows at him, and still they died in their hundreds as the arrows rebounded. There was noise all around him. The cheers and yells of the Sommlending archers mixed with the whooping cackles of the giaks and the vengeful barking of the giant doomwolves and the shrieks of the dying. A Holmgard archer toppled from his post high on the wooden palisade, his throat pierced by a stubby black arrow; clearly Alyss's protection extended only to Lone Wolf. Some of the doomwolves were forgetting their training and reverting to indiscriminate savagery, ignoring the frenzied commands of the giaks astride them and voraciously attacking the bodies of their fallen brethren. Lone Wolf saw reality through a kaleidoscopic swirl of clashing colours. His ankles slammed painfully together as he did his best to run. Once or twice more he fell. The soldiers had opened a gate directly ahead of him, and a few of them had foolhardily ventured out onto the plain, their swords ready for combat although, of course, their shields had little chance of defending them against the weight of the arrows that were now raining down. Giak shrieks intensified as some of the doomwolves began to turn upon their masters. Lone Wolf's world was filled with cacophonous sounds, none of which made any sense to him; the colours before his eyes were spinning more swiftly now. A soldier looked down in astonishment at the arrow that had suddenly appeared in his belly, then fell screaming, blood dribbling from his mouth; two of his companions dragged him back inside the palisade.

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The advance of the army of Darkness was slowed as more and more of those in the van found themselves fighting not the enemy but their own mounts. Lone Wolf was on his knees now, crawling leadenly, his limbs heavy with fatigue; there was no mind in him, only a single compelling purpose -to move forwards. A cloud passed over the sun. He collapsed, face downwards. In place of the myriad swirling colours, all he could see was an endless expanse of green. His nose was filled with the moist odours of earth and grass. An invisible, slim hand seized him by the collar, and a voice said inside him: Get a move on, you clot! He felt himself being dragged forwards, his limbs moving weakly in response. One of the three soldiers who ran to rescue him lost his life in the attempt, an arrow taking him in the groin and another in the left eye. His comrades reached Lone Wolf's twitching form and lugged it with desperate slowness towards the gate. Lone Wolf's axe, around which his hand was still tightly clasped, traced out a furrow in the cool grass. He recovered consciousness briefly, and was able to stagger along on his feet for a few seconds, supported by his rescuers, but just as he reached the wooden fieldworks he collapsed again. The last he knew was the sound of the gate being slammed shut behind him. Then there was only the abyss. 4 "I haven't been the best of Journeymen," said Banedon to his Guildmaster. "I failed to reach the Kai Monastery in time, and I failed to return here soon enough to help you protect Toran from the assault." "Don't blame yourself," said the Guildmaster. Banedon perched on one of the benches where the Elders more customarily sat. His eyes, like the Guildmaster's, were streaming. The members of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star had successfully doused the flames which had covered the city, but the air was still filled with smoke. As Alyss had predicted, magic had proved to be of no avail in quenching the fires, and the magicians had had to

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resort to the use of water, sand, brooms, blankets and other more conventional means. The other survivors of the firestorm -- notably the men and women of the Guild of Wheelwrights, which had escaped relatively unscathed -- had joined in as best they were able. The upper parts of Toran, where the streets were narrow, had been destroyed completely, and all that the firefighters could hope to do was to beat back the flames so that they didn't spread into the heart of the city, where fortunately the streets were wider. Both the Guildmaster and Banedon were covered in painful minor burns. These the Guildmaster had attempted to heal using magical methods, but without success. "Don't blame yourself," he repeated. "You've done as well as could have been expected of you. You're only a boy. I was a fool to send you on that mission. I should have sent someone more experienced, but I didn't realize how imminent the danger was." Grey One leapt up onto the Guildmaster's lap and sniffed inquisitively at a patch of scorched flesh. Apparently the kitten was satisfied that, despite the fact that the Guildmaster smelled differently, this was nevertheless its beloved master, for it curled itself up into a ball and fell asleep. Banedon felt a mixture of relief and resentment: relief that he wasn't being blamed for his failures; resentment at being discounted as a mere child. "Were you really there with me, inside the tapestry?" he said, eager to talk of other things. "Inasmuch as either of us was really there, then, yes," said the Guildmaster. "I remember all that went on and all that Bec told us. Since then I've met your friend Alyss in person: I'm not sure I'd describe it as an unalloyedly pleasant experience, mind you . . ." "She grows on you," said Banedon, doubtfully. "Who is she?" "I . . . don't know. I've been thinking about it but, still, well, still I don't know. Sometimes she seems as if she's a goddess, and other times she seems nothing more than a child." "You like her a lot, don't you?" Banedon blushed. "Yes. I've got to. She's told me that, one day, we'll fall in love with each other, and I believe her. Everything else she's told me has been true, and so I suppose this'll come about as well." "It's not given to mortals to befriend gods or goddesses," said the Guildmaster ruminatively. "But, anyway, I doubt if she's a deity: if she were,

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she would be able to change the future far more than she can. She might perhaps be a Shianti." Banedon knew of the Shianti. About three and a half thousand years ago they had emerged on to Magnamund through the Shadow Gate linking Magnamund to the astral plane of Dazhiarn. They had gained for themselves almost godlike powers and wisdoms, all of which they had encapsulated in the Moonstone. However, Ishir had persuaded them that their presence -and especially that of the Moonstone -- was upsetting the balance of the conflict between Good and Evil, and they had exiled themselves to the Isle of Lorn, far away at the tip of Southern Magnamund. "But the Shianti pledged they would never again interfere with the affairs of mortals," he blurted. "Pledges can be broken," said the Guildmaster slowly, "even by the best intentioned of us." He sighed. "Or perhaps she's just the capricious young minx she seems to be -- rebelling against the rules imposed by her elders. In which case she would be very dangerous . . . and it would be even more dangerous for us to continue to rely on her assistance. If she's a truant Shianti she'll soon be brought to heel by the rest of them. I wouldn't be too confident about anything she tells you if I were you, Banedon." The Guildmaster tickled Grey One idly behind the ears and the kitten flicked its tail warningly. Then it settled back to sleep, its tail reassuringly wrapped beneath its nose. Grey One's twin stalked across the Great Hall and rubbed itself against Banedon's leg. Without really thinking about it, he scooped the animal up on his knees. "That was once a helghast," said the Guildmaster conversationally. Banedon leapt to his feet, throwing the animal away from him. The Guildmaster began to laugh. "But it's not a helghast now, and it never will be again. Go on, make friends with it. I think you've hurt its feelings." Banedon blushed again, but moved to pick up the kitten. It struggled for a moment or two, but then relaxed as he whispered blandishments into its ear. He sat down and pushed his fist gently towards its forehead; the kitten pushed back against him, and its eyes closed in pleasure. It rolled onto its back, leaving its softly furry stomach exposed; as he rubbed it, the kitten made little mewling noises and waved its paws, snatching at his hand and trying to bite his fingers. "But," said the Guildmaster in due course, "if Alyss isn't a Shianti, then what else might she be?" "I . . . I just don't know. All I know is that she seems to be a friend of

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mine -- and of Good. I do like her, you know." "You've already said so," remarked the Guildmaster drily, "and it's blatantly obvious anyway. Still . . . Banedon, I worry about her." "I worry about Vonotar," Banedon muttered. "I heard that," said the Guildmaster sharply. "But no, Banedon, you're right. Naar alone knows what Vonotar is capable of now. But from all you tell me Alyss has even greater powers than he has. Which is all well and good if she acts to assist us drive back the forces of Evil. But we know so little about her! What happens if she decides suddenly to change sides? What if she simply retreats to wherever she came from?" "Then," said Banedon softly, his voice filled with despair, "then I think we might as well just surrender to Zagarna." "Be very . . . polite to Alyss whenever you see her," said the Guildmaster after a pause. Suddenly she was there in front of them. She was dressed in her ragged jerkin and trousers, and her tanned cheeks were flushed with ire. "I don't like people talking about me behind my back," she said tartly, pointing at the Guildmaster. "You'd do well to remember your courtesy." "I . . . I . . . Look, just who are you?" "Haven't got time to talk right now. I'm in the middle of saving the life of an ungrateful boy." Her mood changed abruptly, and she turned towards Banedon with a full-blooded smile. She winked with hugely exaggerated flirtatiousness, then slapped her hip and spun her body on a single straightly pointed leg. The speed of her movement increased rapidly until the blur of her body disappeared. Where she had been there was a freshly cut sunflower, lying on the tiled floor, the dew still glinting brightly on its stalk. Banedon moved to pick it up, dropping the kitten gently to the ground. "I would've been polite if I'd had the chance," he said defensively. "She does have a certain . . . presence," admitted the Guildmaster. 5 Qinefer found herself facing the sturdy outer palisade of a city whose name she didn't know. Far away to her right she could see that a vast horde of doomwolves and giaks was spreading across the plain, obviously intending to assault the city. Many of them seemed to be dying from well directed arrows, but the distance was too great for her to see exactly what was going

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on. Her first instinct was to move to the attack, but then even she could realize she'd be simply throwing her life away if she stood unaided in the face of this huge army. She would do better to ally herself to the inhabitants of the nameless city. She ran forwards. Moments later she was being ushered through a narrow gate. A soldier looked her up and down. "And who might you be?" he said bluntly. "A friend," she replied bluntly. "I've brought my swords to assist you." She gestured in the general direction of the advancing army, way over on the far side of the city. "Those are giak swords, said the soldier suspiciously. "There are quite a few dead giaks around," she said. "The peasants are putting up a good fight, then?" "Oh." She was genuinely startled at the misunderstanding. "No, no, I don't know what the peasants are doing. I meant that, you know --" The soldier looked at her incredulously. "You're not trying to tell me that you've been killing giaks?" "Well, it's the best thing to do with them, isn't it?" "But you're just a slip of a --" He brought himself up short. Now that he examined her more carefully he could see the strength directly underlying her skin; the breadth of her arms was not puppy-fat, as he'd first thought, but firm muscle. Her crudely woven clothes made her look as if she were just a bulky child, but in fact she was a superbly athletic young woman. Could she be a helghast? he wondered, and behind his back he beckoned. The sentinels at the gates of Holmgard were not exclusively military. As the flood of refugees had reached the city over the past few days, the king had called in from all the surrounding area the travelling brethren of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star. Only the magicians could tell disguised helghast from genuine human beings. King Ulnar had taken a couple of chances here. He'd assumed that none of the fugitives admitted up until now had been helghast; he'd also risked that the robed magicians themselves were what they seemed. So far he appeared to have been lucky in his gambles. The elderly woman in the starred robe who approached Qinefer and the soldier took only one look at the girl. She smiled a welcome, and that was enough. "We're glad to have you with us," said the soldier, shaking Qinefer's hand.

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She stuck both of her swords into her belt and dragged her fingers through her curly hair. "A change of clothing would be good, if there's time." "We'll see what we can do," said the soldier. But he gestured to one of his fellows, who scuttled urgently away. 6 When Lone Wolf opened his eyes he was immediately confronted by a hideous mask. He screamed in terror and rolled over. Surely this was still a nightmare? A hand patted his shoulder. "I'm not being the best looking of all of us," said a friendly voice in a broad Kirlundin accent, "but you do be seeming to be a bit on the offensive side, young fellow." For several seconds Lone Wolf hadn't the faintest idea where he was, and then he remembered the last despairing struggle to force his legs to carry him to the outer defences of Holmgard. He hauled himself to his knees, and then twisted himself around so that he was sitting up on the clay soil. "I'm sorry," he said weakly. "Oh, don't be a-minding of that," said the person facing him. An arrow had slashed across the man's cheek, opening up the flesh, and slow blood was trickling steadily down onto his throat. The man was dressed in military uniform -- Lone Wolf guessed he was a sergeant, but couldn't be sure. "I know I'm not a pretty sight," said the presumed sergeant. "I'm probably not a pretty sight myself," said Lone Wolf. "For a while back there I thought I was probably dead." "So did we," said the sergeant reassuringly, "but we decided to go out and fetch you anyway." Memories came gushing back. "You mean you're one of the ones who . . .?" The sergeant grinned painfully. "We be doing of our best," he said. Lone Wolf felt a sense of overwhelming guilt. He shook his head in an attempt to clear it. The guilt was born from the fact that there was nothing he could say properly to express his gratitude towards this man who'd saved his life. All the usual words seemed like empty platitudes. "Thank you," he said limply. "You know how it is --" "I be knowing," said the sergeant with a lopsided smile which increased the flow of blood down his cheek. "Both you and I be being a-

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better off if we be attended by a chirurgeon, I be thinking." An officer who, if Lone Wolf could judge by the splendour of the edifice surmounting his helmet, was considerably superior to the sergeant appeared within his field of vision. "Kai!" the man spat through his open vizor, recognizing Lone Wolf's bedraggled costume. "Where are all you Kai when we need you? Hiding away in that Monastery of yours, I suppose!" His hand hovered by the sword at his hip. Lone Wolf realized that he was seconds away from an unjust death. It came to him that the dead are not interested in justice or injustice -- by then it's too late. He relaxed. What concern was it of his whether Sommerlund stood or fell? He'd given all that he could; death might at least be more tranquil. The sergeant who'd helped save his life interposed himself between Lone Wolf and the officer. "I think you do be better a-thinking a bit more, sir," he said. The words were superficially respectful, but all three of them could tell from the determined tone of the man's voice that he was prepared to defend the groggy youth by force of arms if need be. "How dare you speak to me like this?" snarled the officer. "Because if you do be going on and killing this lad, it's not worth any more fighting for King Ulnar." The sergeant was trembling. "We be battling against those who be slaughtering the innocent, not for them. If we be killing on sight we be no better than Zagarna himself!" The officer, furious, drew his sword halfway from its sheath, and then relaxed. "You're quite correct, sergeant, and your insubordination was perfectly justified." The sergeant was still trembling. Lone Wolf could see that the man had poured all his emotion into his short speech. "Where have you come from, young man?" said the officer gently to Lone Wolf. "From the Kai Monastery." "And why have none of your fellows come with you?" the officer inquired with a certain sarcastic pseudo-courtesy. The sergeant had been right to stay him from killing this blood-and ichor-stained youth, but that didn't mean the rest of the Kai were immune from blame. "Because they're dead. Every last one of them -- except me." The officer's shoulders slumped. The sergeant looked aghast.

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Briefly Lone Wolf explained about the massacre at the Monastery; he added the few details he knew concerning the role Vonotar had played in bringing about the sad event. He skimmed over his own adventures in making his way to Holmgard, mentioning only the most important points. "You seem to be brave, for a youth as callow as you are," said the officer grudgingly. "He be a man I'd be proud to be," said the sergeant confidently, ignoring the look of sudden anger the officer directed towards him. "We be better getting a horse to be taking him to the king. I be a-going along as to guide him, if you wish, sir." The officer could find no words to express his aristocratic fury at the sergeant's presumption, but he had enough presence of mind to realize the man was talking sense. Silently he beckoned an ostler, and moments later Lone Wolf and the sergeant were mounted and riding side-by-side towards the imposing stone walls that surrounded the city of Holmgard. "Don't you be all worried about him," said the sergeant through taut lips as he spurred his horse. "He be forgetting all about you and me in five minutes. He be a good man, but he already be having lost two of his sons in battle this day, and it makes him a little too eager, if and you see what I be meaning." Lone Wolf didn't, but he nodded dutifully.

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10 Her Smiling Brown Eyes 1 Holmgard was the first city that Lone Wolf had ever seen, and his mind had difficulty encompassing the size and strength of its walls, rearing two hundred feet into the air. Over the centuries they had withstood the ravages of the weather and of the armies of Darkness. Even thicker than they were high, their very presence powerfully conveyed that they were immovable and impervious. Yet never before had they defended the city from an onslaught as fierce as this one threatened to be. Above the vast main gates were the heads of hundreds of criminals, spitted on pikes to warn of the city's strict code of justice. Crows and ravens circled around, occasionally pausing to snatch at the easy pickings. Lone Wolf gulped uneasily. He had seen brutal death more times now than he could remember, but this ritual impalement was anathema to him. He looked towards the sergeant, but the man seemed not to have noticed the macabre spectacle. Perhaps, over time, he'd simply become used to it. People could be like that, Lone Wolf knew: his own sister, Kari, had endured years of an unhappy marriage simply because it had never dawned on her that there was any possibility of escape; until a friend had told her that things could be different, she had assumed her husband's brutish behaviour was simply the way that husbands behaved. Perhaps, similarly, the sergeant had become inured to the inhumanity of the grisly display over the city's gates. Maybe, although this was almost impossible to contemplate, even giaks would have been gentle creatures had they been reared in a different society. Lone Wolf abandoned his speculations as the horses sped together towards the gates. Soon his escort would be leading him into the presence of the king. Of Ulnar he knew nothing -- although he had admired the courage of his only son Pelathar in the moments before death had mercifully claimed the Prince. He found that he was more than a little apprehensive. Now they were in the shadow of the great walls, and all the world seemed colder than it had been moments before. He realized he must look a horrendous sight, covered as he was in his own and others' blood. This was surely not the way he should be meeting his king for the first time. Yet the king was, by all accounts, a warrior himself: he would be accustomed to seeing a few splashes of drying blood.

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The gates were only partly open, and a solemn line of sentries stood before them, their spears half-forward to repel any enemies who might somehow have slipped through the outer cordon. Their faces were set in grim creases: they clearly recognized that their defence of their city would almost certainly cost them their lives. Although the two people hurtling on horseback towards them were probably allies, the men were taking no chances and made no welcoming movement. The row of spear-points was deathly still. "Halt!" cried their captain, baring his sword. The two riders drew their horses up. Lone Wolf exhaustedly allowed the sergeant to do the talking. "We be going to see the king." "That's what they all say," the captain replied tiredly. "Try again." "But we really do be." "Half the soldiers at the outer gates have been here today with urgent messages for the king," said the captain, his languid tones betraying his deep boredom. "All of them were simply trying to duck having to face the first assault of the Darklord spawn. What makes you think I should treat you any different from the others?" "Because we --" "Excuse me," Lone Wolf interposed politely. "Were any of the other soldiers dressed the way that I am?" The captain looked at him with little interest. "No," he said. Then suddenly his expression changed. "A Kai!" he shouted. "Thanks be to Ishir! Are there others on the way?" "No." "You mean that all the Monastery has sent is a boy?" The captain was incredulous. "Holmgard needs every morsel of help it can get, and the Kai send us a youth whose face is as smooth as a baby's!" "There be no other Kai," said the sergeant, and tersely explained. By now the spears had been lowered, and the sentries were looking more friendly. One of them went so far as to smile sympathetically at Lone Wolf, whose exhaustion was draping him inelegantly over the pommel of his saddle. A gentle drizzle began to fall, the tiny drops of water glistening like diamonds as they fell through the light of the sun. The captain came to a decision. "You," he said to the sergeant, "must return to your duties. This lad can come into the city. I'll detail one of my men to escort him to the palace." The sergeant looked at Lone Wolf and shrugged. "Been nice a-

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knowing you," he said, "but orders be orders." Lone Wolf reached out a hand and, without hesitation, the sergeant shook it vigorously. "Perhaps we be meeting again." "That's in the hands of Ishir and Kai. Good luck." Lone Wolf looked towards the outer fieldworks, beyond which the blood-crazed yells of the attacking giaks and drakkarim were now clearly audible. "I think you may need it, my friend." The sergeant gave him a broad grin. "I do be needing a bit of luck, I be a-thinking," he said, "and thanks for using the word 'friend'. That be good." He turned his horse and headed away from the walls. Lone Wolf was helped from the saddle and led through the cordon of sentries. He staggered once, and the soldier deputed to escort him caught him only just in time. Through the walls of Holmgard there was a long, dimly lit tunnel. It was echoingly empty, but at the far end Lone Wolf could see a press of people -- both the military and civilians -- moving in all directions, like mice whose nest has been disturbed. As he and his escort trailed slowly through the tunnel the sounds of the roiling crowds became louder and louder. He was recovering his strength, which had been ebbing and flowing during the last hour or so; he shrugged away the supporting arm and exulted in the experience of being able to walk on his own two feet without assistance. The din, as they emerged from the tunnel, was astonishing. Merchants were shouting to each other, suggesting different ways of avoiding the siege: perhaps they could flee to the south, if only the soldiers would let them through . . . The soldiers, by contrast, were engaged in a desperate effort to find their superior officers so that the defence of Holmgard could be efficiently organized. The man deputed to escort Lone Wolf to the palace suddenly twisted and vanished into the press. Lone Wolf was startled, then terrified. He was in a strange city. For some reason he'd been deserted. Vast numbers of people were milling around in front of him. Shrill cries overhead betrayed the fact that now the Darklord Zagarna had added kraan to the army attacking Holmgard. Lone Wolf grabbed the arm of a passing soldier. "Quick, tell me, how do I get to the palace?" "The king's citadel? No difficulty. Straight ahead the way you're going. See it there? On the right." The man was gone.

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Lone Wolf pushed with difficulty through the panicking mob. The fear of siege had driven some of them beyond the bounds of sanity, and their mouths drooled as they ran and shouted. A runaway horse struck him on the shoulder and he went hurtling into a dingy doorway. Just as he was regaining his balance, the door was flung open and an aged man wielding a meat-cleaver burst out, clearly thinking that he was defending his home against the foe. Lone Wolf dodged the swish of the blade and fled into a narrow, cramped mews. He found himself at a dead end: if the old man pursued him here he would have no option but to kill him. He swirled his axe, ready for an attack, but fortunately the attack never came. After several minutes he made his way cautiously back to join the street, where the throngs were still pushing and shoving in all directions. He returned his axe to his belt, and tried to follow a stream of citizens who seemed to be heading in the general direction of King Ulnar's citadel. The colours of their clothes mixed and hazed until he was uncertain what he was actually seeing and what his mind was conjuring up. It seemed to him as if he were nothing more than a leaf being carried tumblingly along by a swiftmoving stream. 2 King Ulnar V of Sommerlund was discussing the war with his advisers. They were poring over a map of the city of Holmgard and its surrounds which had been spread out on a marble plinth, its corners held down by carved stone paperweights. From time to time, officers would dash into the council chamber, unannounced, their armour and uniform jangling, to bring the latest reports from the outskirts. A clerk was miserably moving pieces of coloured bone around on the map, recording the enemy's movements. Tears were running down his face. His wife had been acting as a sentry at one of the gates through the fieldworks. Before the casualty list had begun to rise, one of the officers, little realizing that her husband was present, had dispassionately read her name among a list of others who had laid down their lives. If he'd wanted to, the clerk could have informed Ulnar of his bereavement, and he would immediately have been excused duty. As it was, he had determined to keep his peace and carry on making his own small contribution to the defence of his home city: he was no fighter himself, but his work might nevertheless help avenge the loss of his wife.

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No one noticed the clerk's tears. Their attention was focused to exclusion on the map and the changing configurations of enemy and defending forces. From time to time the king or Baron Tor Medar, the Seneschal of Tyso and a doughty strategist, snapped orders that would in due course be relayed to the troops. The main bulk of Zagarna's army had approached along the coast of the Holmgulf; they had fastidiously skirted the city of Tyso -- the city was of minor importance and was well defended. Fortunately, Zagarna had no navy: Holmgard would have been vulnerable from the sea. But the spawn of Helgedad were encroaching from all other directions. "We must accept," said the king softly, premature lines furrowing his face, "that large areas of Sommerlund are already lost to us. What I can't understand is why we've heard nothing from the Kai. Some of them should have been here. I can't believe that Zagarna could have held them up for so long. Let's assume the area surrounding their Monastery is safe. Toran should be secure as well -- I don't see Zagarna wanting to attack a city with magical defences. Thank Ishir for the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star! But the Kai -- have we any news from that region?" "None at all, your Majesty," said one of Ulnar's advisers. An officer barked out more information concerning the course of the siege, and the clerk, still weeping, moved his fragments of coloured bone accordingly. The officer added that a number of kraan had been observed. "So," mused Baron Tor Medar, "now we have to cope with assault from the air as well. I think, Ulnar, we should send a company of archers up onto the battlements." "Wise friend," said the king. "Make sure that it's done." Earlier in the day Ulnar had been conducting a state ceremony, and he was still clad in his royal robes. He would have preferred to have been dressed in his more usual costume -- the uniform of a soldier -- and to be out among his troops. But that was a foolish thought: his place was here, controlling the campaign of resistance. Still . . . He fingered his erminefringed robe with contempt and wished devoutly he were in the thick of battle. He consoled himself with the thought that his son, Pelathar, was acting as his proxy, somewhere out there to the northwest, doubtless repelling the foe at the head of his army. The king made a grumpy noise. He was in his mid-forties, but the pressures of his responsibilities over the years since he had inherited the throne made him look much older than that. His face was furrowed and his hair was greying, as was his neat beard.

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"If only the civilians would stay in their homes," he muttered. "Our scouts are taking far too long to reach us because of the congestion in the streets." "Shall I order a curfew?" said Tor Medar. "No, leave it for now. It'd only panic the populace even more than they're panicked already. Besides, we don't have the troops to spare to enforce it." The king's look of moodiness deepened. The clash of swords and the cries of battle -- those were much more to his taste than this quiet council chamber. For perhaps twenty minutes there was silence as the king brooded. His instinct was to launch a counterattack against the forces of Darkness, but the map and his intellect told him that this would be impossible. There was enough food in the city to keep its inhabitants alive for perhaps a month -no, with strict rationing, make that forty days. If the defenders could last out long enough -- and every man, woman and child in the city would in due course have to take up arms to help defend Holmgard -- there would be time to send someone to Durenor to bring the Sommerswerd, the ancient weapon with which King Ulnar I had slain Vashna at the Battle of the Maakengorge. As an experienced campaigner, he recognized that his forces were sufficient to keep the Darklord's spawn at bay for as long as the supplies of food and weaponry lasted out, but . . . but, barring a miracle, it would be impossible for him to drive Zagarna's armies back. The situation was a stalemate. An officer arrived to announce that the archers were proving their effectiveness against the kraan. Many of the flying creatures had been downed, and casualties among the archers were minimal. The king thought on. The Sommerswerd -- yes, the great Sword of the Sun, which his ancestor, another Ulnar, had used to kill the Darklord Vashna over a thousand years ago -- that was the weapon Sommerlund needed if it were to repel Zagarna. Had Pelathar been here the king would have sent his son on the mission, for he knew the young man was the most capable of all those at his command. He was a sturdy fighter, afraid of little yet not stupidly cocksure; he had the wit to avoid conflicts where he knew that his chances of success were slender. But Pelathar was far from here, coursing with his army the region between Toran and Holmgard. Ulnar looked around at his trusted advisers. They were good men, all of them, and fine military strategists, but they were hardly of a calibre to be sent out into the field. Even his old friend Tor Medar was running to fat now

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that he had long since said goodbye to his fiftieth year. There must be young men -- or, for that matter, women -- among the armies of Sommerlund who could carry out the expedition, and yet the importance was such that Ulnar was reluctant to entrust the mission merely to a soldier who showed promise. One of the Kai Lords should be given the task -- especially since only the Kai could use the sword to its fullest effect -- but the Kai were, he assumed, right at this moment conducting their own war against Zagarna's hordes. His mind turned to the Seal of Hammerdal, which was kept in strictest secrecy in a strongroom deep within the citadel. Long ago, after Ulnar I had killed Vashna using the Sommerswerd, at the same time losing his own life, the weapon had been entrusted by Sommerlund to the rulers of the kingdom of Durenor as a symbol of the trust and allegiance that existed between the two countries. In return, King Axim of Durenor had given to the royal family of Sommerlund a golden ring bearing his heraldic crest. This ring, the Seal of Hammerdal, was a symbol of the willingness of Durenor to come to the aid of Sommerlund should there ever again be a threat from the Darklands. A messenger bearing the Seal would be permitted to take the Sommerswerd, and at the same time the armies of Durenor would be raised to help its traditional ally drive back the forces of Darkness. If only the king could think of someone he trusted to bear the Seal to Durenor! He explained his dilemma to Baron Tor Medar. "I'll go," said the bluff old soldier at once. Ulnar looked embarrassed. "Don't you think you're rather too . . . well, my old friend, I don't know how to put this, but --" "True," said the baron glumly. "Thirty years ago and I'd have been your man. As it is . . ." He let the sentence hang in the air. An officer burst into the chamber. "We think we've discovered an infiltrator," he said in clipped tones. "A helghast?" asked Ulnar. Because of the crisis there were no formalities of rank. "No, definitely not. Some of the peripatetic allegiates of the Brotherhood of the Crystal Star have examined her. She's human, all right. But the story she tells is too incredible. She claims to have killed more giaks than any of your knights -- yet she's just a chit of a girl. Perhaps she's some new type of spawn bred in Helgedad . . . some new creature we've never encountered before."

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"Put her to death," said the king absentmindedly. "No!" shouted Tor Medar. "Ulnar, you're my closest friend, for the sake of Ishir and Kai! How can you say such a thing?" "We're at war, Tor." The king eyed the baron coldly. There were limits to friendship. "Even so, perhaps the girl speaks the truth! At the very least you could ask your lieutenants to examine her claims." The baron blew out his chest to its maximum extent and glared at Ulnar: the old warrior was utterly ruthless in battle, but he had a profound sense of fair play. He had condemned many traitors to death, yet always he had ensured that they received a fair trial and that their guilt had been proved beyond all possible doubt. Small wonder that he was horrified by the king's cavalier attitude. Ulnar chuckled. "Thanks, Tor," he said. "As always, you're perfectly correct. Where would I be without an attendant voice of conscience like yourself? Let's have the girl brought before us so that you and I can judge her together." A few minutes later a young, dark-skinned woman was dragged into the chamber. The three guards who had brought her here bore obvious signs of her spirited defiance: although her two giak swords had long since been taken from her, one of the guards bore a painful-looking slash across his forehead and the other two sported facial bruises. The girl's brown eyes spat fury at the gathering of nobles, and she spared the king nothing of her ire. "Who are you?" asked Ulnar mildly. "I'm a soldier who wishes death to the spawn of Zagarna," she spat. "Can you say as much yourself?" "Certainly I can," Ulnar said quietly. "I've fought in many campaigns, including some that were mounted long before you yourself were born." He smiled through his beard. Perhaps at last he had found someone whom he could with confidence send to Durenor. The girl was beautiful, and at the same time in a mess: she was covered in the badly washed-away stains of giak ichor -- not just her clothes but also her face and hair. There was a flush of fury growing beneath her dark skin. Although her weapons had been taken from her, her hands swished through the air threateningly. There was something of the Kai about her, thought the king, but from her crudely made clothing he deduced she was a farm girl. The guards were having difficulty holding her back, especially since she showed no compunction about aiming her blows at sensitive areas.

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"Perhaps," said Ulnar, "you might be interested in carrying out a mission for me?" "I might," she said. "But how do I know I can trust you?" Ulnar smiled at the impertinence, the irony; then frowned again. "Do not release her quite yet," he said to the guards. "Let her hot head cool a little, and then I may ask her again." 3 An hour later -- or perhaps two hours, or three; pushing and squirming through the melee, he had lost all track of time -- Lone Wolf finally stood before the great citadel of Holmgard. It reared towards the sky above him, its pink walls blotting out half of his vision. Between him and it was a broad square packed with milling people, some of them screaming in panic and others attempting to fulfil mysterious military functions. Lone Wolf thrust himself once again into the turmoil, moving with all the nimbleness of a pickpocket working a crowd at a sports festival, ignoring the catcalls of hooligans who derided his bespattered clothing. As he arrived at the main gate of the citadel the huge iron doors opened to allow a brightly coloured wagon to come out. One of its pair of horses reared, terrified by the screaming and chanting of the crowds; the wagon veered sideways, and a wheel shattered against the gateway. Guards gathered swiftly around; the wagon's driver had been injured, and they rough-handedly nursed him while calling for a physician. In the confusion, Lone Wolf slipped by them and into the stronghold. If the scene in the streets of Holmgard had been hectic, the one here was doubly so. Wherever he looked there were troopers shouldering past each other, somehow making sense of the orders shouted at them by their officers, who stood in the corners of the courtyard, each dressed in a distinctively coloured uniform, bawling instructions which Lone Wolf found totally incomprehensible. Scouts bustled in astride panting horses and paused only for seconds as they delivered their news from the outer defences; some were bleeding copiously but none seemed much interested in medical treatment. His mouth open in awe, Lone Wolf watched all of this as he slowly advanced across the courtyard. For the first time it crossed his mind that perhaps his journey to meet the king might have been a fool's errand; although he brought a message from Ulnar's own son, Pelathar, perhaps swiftly moving parties of armoured knights had already delivered it. That the

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destruction of the Kai Monastery was not a matter generally known in Holmgard was obvious to him from the conversations he had so far conducted, but maybe it was something of which the king was already aware. "Stop that man!" one of the officers shouted, and Lone Wolf looked around him, wondering what was going on. To his dismay he saw that a group of three soldiers was heading directly towards him, their swords unsheathed ready for attack. "An intruder!" the officer yelled. Then the foremost of the soldiers recognized Lone Wolf and put up his sword; with movements of his hands he persuaded the others to do the same. "It do be you," said the sergeant who'd befriended him at the outer gate, clapping his arm boisterously about Lone Wolf's shoulders and grinning his welcome. "They guards out there be a-letting me in when they saw what be happened to you. I be asked to find you and be helping you." "What do you mean?" Lone Wolf was all too aware that the tremors in his voice betrayed his nervousness "That soldier what agreed to guide you here -- he be not a soldier at all. He be a-fleeing through the gates of Holmgard, taking a message to his fell master, the swine which be calling himself Zagarna." "You mean --?" "Yes, that was being a helghast. He -- it -- be here as a human, learning about us defences. He be discovering there be a Kai amongst us." The elderly sergeant's face crinkled in an expression of half-friendship, halfanxiety. "You be suddenly a very important lad, young Kai," he said, clasping Lone Wolf's face to his musky brown shoulder. "Let me be a-taking you in my own person to the king's great council room." Lone Wolf allowed himself to be led. The stern expressions of the sergeant and his men made the crowds open up before them. He saw the richness of the tapestries hung on the pink granite walls and the sparkle of the bright crystals in the rich tiles beneath his feet. Within moments they were inside the central building of the citadel, and the crowds were far behind them. Their footfalls echoed eerily in the empty corridors, but the soldiers seemed unconcerned. Lone Wolf, for the first time since he had viewed the tumble of corpses surrounding the Kai Monastery, wanted to do nothing more than flee. He was very conscious of the fact that his clothes were tattered and bloodstained, that he looked like a beggar brought in from the street . . .

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They were met by a tall, good-looking warrior who was manifestly of superior rank. Over his aquiline nose he regarded them coldly, clearly regarding their request for an audience with the king as a ridiculous intrusion. The man looked at the bedraggled figure of Lone Wolf and smiled patronizingly. "This 'Kai' of yours is merely a boy," he said, his voice filled with gratuitous sarcasm. "The king has better things to do with his time that to speak with imposters. This is no time to indulge the fantasies of children." Frustratedly Lone Wolf drew his sword from its sheath, the hiss of the metal against the leather paralleled by the hiss of his breath. "I've travelled untold miles to see the king," he said, the sword-point hovering near the officer's throat, "and I don't intend to be balked now that I've come this far! You call me 'boy': how many times have you battled with giaks armed only with your wits and your weapons?" Lone Wolf's friend the sergeant put out his arms to keep the other soldiers back. "That's not exactly the point," said the officer, a tremble in his voice. "What matters is that --" "Silence!" shouted Lone Wolf. "What matters is that you're going to lead me to King Ulnar." The wound across his forehead began once more to ooze blood. He blurted out the important details of what had happened to him since the Kai Monastery had been destroyed, telling also of Prince Pelathar's death and the words the Prince had spoken as he died. The aristocrat had the honesty, eventually, to shake Lone Wolf's hand and apologize. "Let me take you to the king," the man said quietly. Lone Wolf, in his exhaustion, lost track of what happened then. The next he knew was that he was seated beside King Ulnar. "Your Majesty . . ." he began in an unsteady voice. 4 "Oh Ishir!" muttered Ulnar as yet another refugee was brought into his council room. "Haven't we got enough of them already?" Baron Tor Medar looked as if he were about to agree, then noticed Lone Wolf's costume. "This one's a little different," he said hesitantly to his friend the king. "I think that if you look you'll notice that --"

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For the first time Ulnar glanced up. "Your Majesty . . ." the newcomer began in an unsteady voice. "A Kai!" Ulnar exclaimed. "But where are all the rest of you?" Over to one side, the girl Qinefer struggled with her captors: she recognized this newcomer as a kindred spirit, but the soldiers guarding her clearly did not. Lone Wolf looked at her briefly, without interest, then looked at her with considerable interest. There was something in her eyes that he recognized. Turning back to Ulnar, he recounted his tale. "So that's why the Kai haven't joined us," murmured the king at one stage, flinching. "And so my son is dead," he said, fatalistically, a little while later. His face reflected nothing but resignation: perhaps grief would come later, but now was neither the time nor the place. Right at this moment, the death of his only son, the Crown Prince, was simply another piece of information to be added to all the others in the calculation of Sommerlund's future strategy. The next heir to the succession was his daughter, whom he had married into the royal line of Durenor. The shrewd politician within him instantly recognized the advantages of this happenstance. In the unlikely event that Durenor might hesitate before coming to aid Sommerlund, the marital relationship should be enough to tip the balance. At the end of Lone Wolf's recitation the king looked him directly in the eyes. "I need someone to bring the Sommerswerd to our assistance," he said, without prevarication. "I could send one my officers, but I want someone better than that. At the moment I seem to have a choice between you and this . . . this tempest of a girl." He gestured towards Qinefer. "She's less tired than you are, and at least as deadly in combat. She's not a Kai, though, and so in her hands the sword would be nothing more than an ordinary weapon; still, there's no reason why she cannot be entrusted with the mission of merely fetching it, while you assist us here. Hmmm." He cupped his chin in his hand and looked backwards and forwards between them. "I can't decide. Perhaps the best thing might be if the two of you discussed the matter between yourselves. One or other of you, however, must take the Seal of Hammerdal to Durenor." At a twitch of the king's fingers a courtier swiftly departed, returning moments later with the sacred ring. Meanwhile the guards, at Ulnar's murmured command, unhanded Qinefer.

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Warily, Lone Wolf and Qinefer approached each other to within a couple of feet. "You look terrible," said Qinefer. Her lips trembled, and for a moment she looked near tears. Then it became obvious that the motion which moved her lips was mirth. Her humour was infectious. "So do you," said Lone Wolf, a broad smile on his face. "You've got --" "I've got? Take a look in a mirror sometime, buster." Qinefer touched her finger under his chin. "Fair comment." Despite himself, Lone Wolf smiled again; he sensed that, while he might be the last of the existing Kai, this girl was the next of . . . of a new order of the Kai, perhaps -- a new order that he, Lone Wolf, must create, training people in whom he detected the spark of Kai in those disciplines he could remember from his years in the Monastery. And he sensed something more than that. The home he had known in his childhood was long lost to him. His home for the succeeding years, the Monastery, had been brutally destroyed, along with all who had dwelt in it. Standing there in King Ulnar's courtroom, with Qinefer in front of him, what he sensed was that at last he had discovered his true home -- not a home of stones and corridors and windows, but a home that was a state of being. Her smiling brown eyes were weaving a home in the air before him. "Do you think you could help the people of Holmgard resist Zagarna?" he said. "Yes. Of course. It'd be my pleasure to do that," responded this beautiful person whom he seemed, for all his lifetime, to have known without knowing. "Then let's leave it that way," said Lone Wolf. "When I return with the Sommerswerd . . ." "If you return." Qinefer's eyes were abruptly serious. Lone Wolf, consciously embarrassed in front of king and courtiers, said: "I'll make absolutely certain I return." He took her dark hand briefly in his pale one. Qinefer shook her head, as if in confusion. Her eyes told him that she, too, was experiencing the strange sense that this was less a first encounter than a reunion. She allowed her hand to be held in his, and suddenly her face softened, and she smiled at him. He took the smile with him all the way through the gloriously

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decorated passageways that led from the courtroom to the richly furnished room where he was to spend the night. Tomorrow he would have to start making his way to Durenor, but tomorrow was tomorrow. For tonight he could think of her, and of the way that she moved, and of the relaxing drawl of her voice. At last he knew the meaning of his quest. Qinefer. Her smile was still on his face when he awoke the next morning.