First King of Shannara

Chapter One

The old man just appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.

The Borderman was watching for him, sitting well back within the concealing shadows of a spreading hardwood high on a hillside overlooking the whole of the Streleheim and the trails leading out of it, everything clearly visible in the light of a full moon for at least ten miles, and he still didn’t see him. It was unnerving and vaguely embarrassing, and the fact that it happened this way every time didn’t make it any more palatable. How did the old man do it? The Borderman had spent almost the whole of his life in this country, kept alive by his wits and experience. He saw things that others did not even know were there. He could read the movements of animals from their passage through tall grass. He could tell you how far ahead of him they were and how fast they were traveling. But he could not spy out the old man on the clearest night and the broadest plain, even when he knew to look for him.

It did not help matters that the old man easily found him.

Moving quite deliberately off the trail, he came toward the Borderman with slow, measured strides, head lowered slightly, eyes tilted up out of the shadow of his cowl. He wore black, like all the Druids, cloaked and hooded, wrapped darker than the shadows he passed through. He was not a big man, neither tall nor well muscled, but he gave the impression of being hard and fixed of purpose. His eyes, when visible, were vaguely green. But at times they seemed as white as bone, too—now, especially, when night stole away colors and reduced all things to shades of gray. They gleamed like an animal’s caught in a fragment of light—feral, piercing, hypnotic. Light illuminated the old man’s face as well, carving out the deep lines that creased it from forehead to chin, playing across the ridges and valleys of the ancient skin. The old man’s hair and beard were gray going fast toward white, the strands wispy and thin like tangled spiderwebs.

The Borderman gave it up and climbed slowly to his feet. He was tall, rangy, and broad-shouldered, his dark hair worn long and tied back, his brown eyes sharp and steady, his lean face all planes and angles, but handsome in a rough sort of way.

A smile crossed the old man’s face as he came up. “How are you, Kinson?” he greeted.

The familiar sound of his voice swept away Kinson Ravenlock’s irritation as if it were dust on the wind. “I am well, Bremen,” he answered, and held out his hand in response.

The old man took it and clasped it firmly in his own. The skin was dry and rough with age, but the hand beneath was strong.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Three weeks. Not as long as I had expected. I am surprised. But then I am always surprised by you.”

Bremen laughed. He had left the Borderman six months earlier with instructions to meet him again on the first full moon of the quarter season directly north of Paranor where the forests gave way to the Plains of Streleheim. The time and place of the meeting were set, but hardly written in stone. Both appreciated the uncertainties the old man faced. Bremen had gone north into forbidden country. The time and place of his return would be dictated by events not yet known to either of them. It was nothing to Kinson that he had been forced to wait three weeks. It could just as easily have been three months.

The Druid looked at him with those piercing eyes, white now in the moonlight, drained of any other color. “Have you learned much in my absence? Have you put your time to good use?”

The Borderman shrugged. “Some of it. Sit down with me and rest. Have you eaten?”

He gave the old man some bread and ale, and they sat hunched close together in the dark, staring out across the broad sweep of the plains. It was silent out there, empty and depthless and vast beneath the night’s moonlit dome. The old man chewed absently, taking his time. The Borderman had built no fire that night or on any other since he had begun his vigil. A fire was too dangerous to chance.

“The Trolls move east,” Kinson offered after a moment. “Thousands of them, more than I could count accurately, though I went down into their camp on the new moon several weeks back when they were closer to where we sit. Their numbers grow as others are sent to serve. They control everything from the Streleheim north as far as I can determine.” He paused. “Have you discovered otherwise?”

The Druid shook his head. He had pushed back his cowl, and his gray head was etched in moonlight. “No, all of it belongs now to him.”

Kinson gave him a sharp look. “Then...”

“What else have you seen?” the old man urged, ignoring him.

The Borderman took the aleskin and drank from it. “The leaders of the army stay closed away in their tents. No one sees them. The Trolls are afraid even to speak their names. This should not be. Nothing frightens Rock Trolls. Except this, it seems.”

He looked at the other. “But at night, sometimes, at watch for you, I see strange shadows flit across the sky in the light of moon and stars. Winged black things sweep across the void, hunting or scouting or simply surveying what they have taken—I can’t tell and don’t want to know. I feel them, though. Even now. They are out there, circling. I feel their presence like an itch. No, not like an itch—like a shiver, the sort that comes to you when you feel eyes watching and the owner of those eyes has bad intentions. My skin crawls. They do not see me; I know if they did I would be dead.”

Bremen nodded. “Skull Bearers, bound in service to him.”

“So he is alive?” Kinson could not help himself. “You know it to be so? You have made certain?”

The Druid put aside the ale and bread and faced him squarely.

The eyes were distant and filled with dark memories.

“He is alive, Kinson. As alive as you and I. I tracked him to his lair, deep in the shadow of the Knife Edge, where the Skull Kingdom puts down its roots. I was not sure at first, as you know. I suspected it, believed it to be so, but lacked evidence that could stand as proof. So I traveled north as we had planned, across the plains and into the mountains. I saw the winged hunters as I went, emerging only at night, great birds of prey that patrolled and kept watch for living things. I made myself as invisible as the air through which they flew. They saw me and saw nothing. I kept myself shrouded in magic, but not of such significance that they would notice it in the presence of their own. I passed west of the Trolls, but found the whole of their land subdued. All who resisted have been put to death. All who could manage to do so have fled. The rest now serve him.”

Kinson nodded. It had been six months since the Troll marauders had swept down out of the Chamals east and begun a systematic subjugation of their people. Their army was vast and swift, and in less than three months all resistance was crushed. The Northland was placed under rule of the conquering army’s mysterious and still unknown leader. There were rumors concerning his identity, but they remained unconfirmed. In truth, few even knew he existed. No word of this army and its leader had penetrated farther south than the border settlements of Varfleet and Tyrsis, fledgling outposts for the Race of Man, though it had spread east and west to the Dwarves and Elves. But the Dwarves and Elves were tied more closely to the Trolls. Man was the outcast race, the more recent enemy of the others. Memories of the First War of the Races still lingered, three hundred and fifty years later. Man lived apart in his distant Southland cities, the rabbit sent scurrying to earth, timid and toothless and of no consequence in the greater scheme of things, food for predators and little more.

But not me, Kinson thought darkly. Never me. I am no rabbit. I have escaped that fate. I have become one of the hunters.

Bremen stirred, shifting his weight to make himself more comfortable. “I went deep into the mountains, searching,” he continued, lost again in his tale. “The farther I went, the more convinced I became. The Skull Bearers were everywhere. There were other beings as well, creatures summoned out of the spirit world, dead things brought to life, evil given form. I kept clear of them all, watchful and cautious. I knew that if I was discovered my magic would probably not be enough to save me. The darkness of this region was overwhelming. It was oppressive and tainted with the smell and taste of death. I went into Skull Mountain finally—one brief visit, for that was all I could chance. I slipped into the passageways and found what I had been searching for.”

He paused, his brow wrinkling. “And more, Kinson. Much more, and none of it good.”

“But he was there?” Kinson pressed anxiously, his hunter’s face intense, his eyes glittering.

“He was there,” affirmed the Druid quietly. “Shrouded by his magic, kept alive by his use of the Druid Sleep. He does not use it wisely, Kinson. He thinks himself beyond the laws of nature. He does not see that for all, however strong, there is a price to be paid for what is usurped and enslaved. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t care. He has fallen under the sway of the Ildatch and cannot free himself in any case.”

“The book of magic he stole out of Paranor?”

“Four hundred years ago. When he was simply Brona, a Druid, one of us, and not yet the Warlock Lord.”

Kinson Ravenlock knew the story. Bremen himself had told it to him, though the history was familiar enough among the Races that he had already heard it a hundred times. Galaphile, an Elf, had called together the First Council of Druids five hundred years earlier, a thousand years following the devastation of the Great Wars.

The Council had met at Paranor, a gathering of the wisest men and women of all the Races, those who had memories of the old world, those who retained a few tattered, crumbling books, those whose learning had survived the barbarism of a thousand years. The Council had gathered in a last, desperate effort to bring the Races out of the savagery that had consumed them and into a new and better civilization. Working together, the Druids had begun the laborious task of assembling their combined knowledge, of piecing together all that remained so that it might be employed for a common good. The goal of the Druids was to work for the betterment of all people, regardless of anything that had gone before.

They were Men, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Trolls, and a smattering of others, the best and wisest of the new Races risen from the ashes of the old. If some small wisdom could be gleaned from the knowledge they carried, there was a chance for everyone.

But the task proved a long and difficult one, and some among the Druids grew restless. One was called Brona. Brilliant, ambitious, but careless of his own safety, he began to experiment with magic. There had been little in the old world, almost none since the decline of faerie and the rise of Man. But Brona believed that it must be recovered and brought back. The old sciences had failed, the destruction of the old world was the direct result of that failure, and the Great Wars were a lesson that the Druids seemed determined to ignore. Magic offered a new approach, and the books that taught it were older and more tried than those of science. Chief among those books was the Ildatch, a monstrous, deadly tome that had survived every cataclysm since the dawn of civilization, protected by dark spells, driven by secret needs.

Brona saw within its ancient pages the answers he had been seeking, the solutions to the problems the Druids sought to solve.

He resolved to have them. His course of action was set.

Others among the Druids warned him of the dangers, others not so impetuous, not so heedless of the lessons history had taught.

For there had never been a form of power that did not evoke multiple consequences. There had never been a sword that did not cut more than one way. Be careful, they warned. Do not be reckless.

But Brona and those few followers who had attached themselves to him would not be dissuaded, and in the end they broke with the Council. They disappeared, taking with them the Ildatch, their map of the new world, their key to the doors they would unlock.

In the end, it led only to their subversion. They fell sway to its power and became forever changed. They came to desire power for its own sake and for their personal use. All else was forgotten, all other goals abandoned. The First War of the Races was the direct result. The Race of Man was the tool they employed, made submissive to their will by the magic, shaped to become their weapon of attack. But their effort failed in the face of the Druid Council and the combined might of the other Races. The aggressors were defeated, and the Race of Man was driven south into exile and isolation. Brona and his followers disappeared. It was said they had been destroyed by the magic.

“Such a fool,” Bremen said suddenly. “The Druid Sleep kept him alive, but it stole away his heart and soul and left him a shell. All those years, we believed him dead. And dead he was, in a sense. But the part that survived was the evil over which the magic had gained dominance. It was the part that sought still to claim the whole of the world and the things that lived within it. It was the part that craved power over all. What matter the price that reckless use of the Sleep demanded? What difference the changes exacted for the extension of a life already wasted? Brona had evolved into the Warlock Lord, and the Warlock Lord would survive at all costs.”

Kinson said nothing. It bothered him that Bremen could condemn so easily Brona’s use of the Druid Sleep without questioning at the same time his own. For Bremen used the Sleep as well. He would argue that he used it in a more balanced, controlled way, that he was cautious of its demands on his body. He would argue that it was necessary to employ the Sleep, that he did it so that he would be there for the Warlock Lord’s inevitable return.

But for all that he might try to draw distinctions, the fact remains that the ultimate consequences of the use were the same, whether you were Warlock Lord or Druid.

One day, it would catch up with him.

“Did you see him, then?” the Borderman asked, anxious to move on. “Did you see his face?”

The old man smiled. “He has no face or body left, Kinson. He is a presence wrapped in a hooded cloak. Like myself, I sometimes think, for I am little more these days.”

“That isn’t so,” Kinson said at once.

“No,” the other quickly agreed, “it isn’t. I keep some sense of right and wrong about me, and I am not yet a slave to the magic. Though that is what you fear I will become, isn’t it?”

Kinson did not answer. “Tell me how you managed to get so close. How was it that you were not discovered?”

Bremen’s eyes looked away, focusing on some distant place and time. “It was not easy,” he replied softly. “The cost was high.”

He reached again for the aleskin and drank deeply, the weariness mirrored in his face so heavy it might have been formed of iron links dragging against his skin. “I was forced to make myself appear one of them,” he said after a moment. “I was required to shroud myself in their thoughts and impulses, in the evil rooted within their souls. I was cloaked in invisibility, so that my physical presence did not register, and I was left only with my spirit self. That I cloaked in the darkness that marks their own spirits, reaching deep within myself for the blackest part of who I am. Oh, I see you question that this was possible. Believe me, Kinson, the potential for evil lodges deep in every man, myself included. We restrain it better, keep it buried deeper, but it lives within us. I was forced to bring it out of concealment in order to protect myself. The feel of it, the rub of it against me, so close, so eager, was terrible. But it served its purpose. It kept the Warlock Lord and his minions from discovering me.”

Kinson frowned. “But you were damaged.”

“For a time. The walk back gave me a chance to heal.” The old man smiled anew, a brief twist of his thin lips. “The trouble is that once brought so far out of its cage, a man’s evil is reluctant thereafter to be contained. It presses against the bars. It is more anxious to escape. More prepared. And having lived in such close proximity to it, I am more vulnerable to the possibility of that escape.”

He shook his head. “We are always being tested in life, aren’t we? This is just one more instance.”

There was a long moment of silence as the two men stared at one another. The moon had moved across the sky to the southern edge of the horizon and was sinking from view. The stars were brightening with its passing, the sky clear of clouds, a brilliant black velvet in the vast, unbroken silence.

Kinson cleared his throat. “As you said, you did what was required of you. It was necessary that you get close enough to determine if your suspicions were correct. Now we know.” He paused. “Tell me. Did you see the book as well? The Ildatch?”

“There, in his hands, out of my reach, or I would surely have taken it and destroyed it, even at the cost of my own life.”

The Warlock Lord and the Ildatch, there in the Skull Kingdom, as real as life, not rumor, not legend. Kinson Ravenlock rocked back slightly and shook his head. Everything true, just as Bremen had feared. As they had both feared. And now this army of Trolls come down out of the Northland to subdue the Races. It was history repeating itself. It was the First War of the Races beginning all over again. Only this time there might not be anyone to bring it to an end.

“Well, well,” he said sadly.

“There is more,” the Druid observed, lifting his eyes to the Borderman. “You must hear it all. There is an Elfstone they search for, the winged ones. A Black Elfstone. The Warlock Lord learned of it from the Ildatch. Somewhere within the pages of that wretched book, there is mention of this stone. It is not an ordinary Elfstone like the others we have heard about. It is not one of three, one each for the heart, mind, and body of the user, their magic to be joined when summoned. This stone’s magic is capable of great evil. There is some mystery about the reason for its creation, about the use it was intended to serve. All that has been lost in the passing of time. But the Ildatch makes deliberate and purposeful reference to its capabilities, it seems. I was fortunate to learn of it. While I clung to the shadows of the wall in the great chamber where the winged ones gather and their Master directs, I heard mention of it.”

He leaned close to the Borderman. “It is hidden somewhere in the Westland, Kinson—deep within an ancient stronghold, protected in ways that you or I could not begin to imagine. It has lain concealed since the time of faerie, lost to history, as forgotten as the magic and the people who once wielded it. Now it waits to be discovered and brought back into use.”

“And what is that use?” Kinson pressed.

“It has the power to subvert other magic, whatever its form, and convert it to the holder’s use. No matter how powerful or intricate another’s magic might be, if you hold the Black Elfstone, you can master your adversary. His magic will be leached from him and made yours. He will be helpless against you.”

Kinson shook his head despairingly. “How can anyone stand against such a thing?”

The old man laughed softly. “Now, now, Kinson, it isn’t really that simple, is it? You remember our lessons, don’t you? Every use of magic exacts a price. There are always consequences, and the more powerful the magic, the greater that consequence will be. But let’s leave that argument for another time. The point is that the Warlock Lord must not be allowed to possess the Black Elfstone because consequences matter not at all to him. He is beyond the point where reason will hold sway. So we must find the Elfstone before he does, and we must find it quickly.”

“And how are we to do that?”

The Druid yawned and stretched wearily, black robes rising and falling in a soft rustle of cloth. “I haven’t the answer to that question, Kinson. Besides, we have other business to attend to first.”

“You will go to Paranor and the Druid Council?”

“I must.”

“But why bother? They won’t listen to you. They mistrust you. Some even fear you.”

The old man nodded. “Some, but not all. There are a few who will listen. In any case, I must try. They are in great danger. The Warlock Lord remembers all too well how they brought about his downfall in the First War of the Races. He will not chance their intervention a second time—even if they no longer seem a real threat to him.”

Kinson looked off into the distance. “They are foolish to ignore you, but ignore you they will, Bremen. They have lost all touch with reality behind their sheltering walls. They have not ventured out into the world for so long that they no longer are able to take a true measure of things. They have lost their identity. They have forgotten their purpose.”

“Hush, now.” Bremen placed a firm hand on the tall man’s shoulder. “There is no point in repeating to ourselves what we already know. We will do what we can and then be on our way.”

He squeezed gently. “I am very tired. Would you keep watch for a few hours while I sleep? We can leave after that.”

The Borderman nodded. “I’ll keep watch.”

The old man rose and moved deeper into the shadows beneath the wide-boughed tree, where he settled down comfortably within his robes on a soft patch of grass. Within minutes he was asleep, his breathing deep and regular. Kinson stared down at him. Even then, his eyes were not quite closed. From behind narrow slits, there was a glimmer of light.

Like a cat, thought Kinson, looking away quickly. Like a dangerous cat.

Time passed, and the night lengthened. Midnight came and went. The moon dropped below the horizon, and the stars spun in vast, kaleidoscopic patterns across the black. Silence lay heavy and absolute over the Streleheim, and on the emptiness of the plains nothing moved. Even within the trees where Kinson Ravenlock kept watch, there was only the sound of the old man’s breathing.

The Borderman glanced down at his companion. Bremen, as much an outcast as himself, alone in his beliefs, exiled for truths that only he could accept.

They were alike in that regard, he thought. He was reminded of their first meeting. The old man had come to him at an inn in Varfleet, seeking his services. Kinson Ravenlock had been a scout. Tracker, explorer, and adventurer for the better part of twenty years, since the time he was fifteen. He had been raised in Callahorn, a part of its frontier life, a member of one of a handful of families who had remained in the Borderlands when everyone else had gone much farther south, distancing themselves from their past. After the conclusion of the First War of the Races, when the Druids had partitioned the Four Lands and left Paranor at the crux, Man had determined to leave a buffer between itself and the other Races. So while the Southland reached as far north as the Dragon’s Teeth, Man had abandoned almost everything above the Rainbow Lake. Only a few Southland families had stayed on, believing that this was their home, finding themselves unwilling to move to the more populated areas of their assigned land. The Ravenlocks had been one of these.

So Kinson had grown up as a Borderman, living on the edge of civilization, but as comfortable with Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, and Trolls as with Men. He had traveled their lands and learned their customs. He had mastered their tongues. He was a student of history, and he had heard it told from enough different points of view that he thought he had gleaned the most important of the truths that it had to offer. Bremen was a student of history as well, and right from the beginning they had shared some common beliefs. One of these was that the Races could succeed in their efforts to maintain peace only by strengthening their ties to one another, not by distancing themselves. A second was that the greatest obstacle to their success in doing so was the Warlock Lord.

Even then, even five years earlier, the rumors were already being passed around. There was something evil living in the Skull Kingdom, a collection of beasts and creatures like nothing ever seen before. There were reports of flying things, winged monsters scouring the land by night in search of mortal victims. There were stories of men going north and never being seen again. The Trolls stayed away from the Knife Edge and the Malg. They did not attempt to cross the Kierlak. When they traveled in proximity to the Skull Kingdom, they banded together in large, heavily armed groups. Nothing would grow in this part of the Northland. Nothing would take root. As time passed, the whole of that devastated region became shrouded in clouds and mist. It became arid and barren. It turned to dust and rock. Nothing could live there, it was said. Nothing that was really alive.

Most dismissed the stories. Many ignored the matter entirely. This was a remote and unfriendly part of the world in any case. What difference did it make what lived or didn’t live there? But Kinson had gone into the Northland to see for himself. He had barely escaped with his life. The winged things had tracked him for five days after they had caught him prowling at the edge of their domain. Only his great skill and more than a little luck had saved him.

So when Bremen approached him, he had already made up his mind that what the Druid was saying was true. The Warlock Lord was real. Brona and his followers lived north in the Skull Kingdom. The threat to the Four Lands was not imagined. Something unpleasant was slowly taking shape.

He had agreed to accompany the old man on his journeys, to serve as a second pair of eyes when needed, to act as courier and scout, and to watch the other’s back when danger threatened.

Kinson had done so for a number of reasons, but none so compelling as the fact that for the first time in his life it gave him a sense of purpose. He was tired of drifting, of living for no better reason than to see again what he had already seen before and to be paid for the privilege. He was bored and directionless. He wanted a challenge.

Bremen had certainly given him that.

He shook his head wonderingly. It surprised him how far they had come together and how close they had grown. It surprised him how much both of those things mattered to him.

A flicker of movement far out on the empty stretches of the Streleheim caught his eye. He blinked and stared fixedly into the dark, seeing nothing. Then the movement came again, a small flutter of blackness in the shadow of a long ravine. It was so distant that he could not be certain what he was seeing, but already he suspected. A cold knot tightened in his stomach. He had seen movement like this before, always at night, always in the emptiness of some desolate place along the borders of the Northland.

He remained motionless, watching, hoping he was wrong. The movement came again, closer this time. Something lifted from the earth, hung suspended against the dark patchwork of the night plains, then dipped downward once more. It might have been a great winged bird in search of food, but it wasn’t.

It was one of the Skull Bearers.

Still Kinson waited, determined to make certain of the creature’s path. Again the shadow lifted away from the earth and soared into the starlight, angling along the ravine for a distance before moving away, coming steadily closer to where the Borderman and the Druid were concealed. Again it dipped downward and disappeared into the blackness of the earth.

Kinson realized with a sinking feeling what the Skull Bearer was doing. It was tracking someone.

Bremen.

He turned quickly now, but the old man was already beside him, staring past him into the night. “I was just about to...”

“Wake me,” the other finished. “Yes, I know.”

Kinson looked back across the plains. Nothing moved. “Did you see?” he asked softly.

“Yes.” Bremen’s voice was alert, but calm. “One of them tracks me.”

“You are certain? It follows your trail, not another’s?”

“Somehow I was careless in my passage out.” Bremen’s eyes glittered. “It knows I have passed this way and seeks to find where I have gone. I wasn’t seen within the Skull Kingdom, so this is a chance discovery. I should have used more caution crossing the plains, but I thought myself safe.”

They watched as the Skull Bearer reappeared, lifting skyward momentarily, gliding soundlessly across the landscape, then lowering into shadow once more.

“There is time yet before it reaches us,” Bremen whispered. “I think we should be on our way. We will disguise our tracks to confuse it should it choose to follow us further. Paranor and the Druids await. Come, Kinson.”

Together they rose and slipped back through the shadows and down the far side of the hill into the trees. They went soundlessly, their movements smooth and practiced, their dark forms seeming to glide across the earth.

In seconds they had disappeared from view.

Chapter Two

They walked the remainder of the night through the sheltering forest, Kinson leading, Bremen a shadow following in his footsteps. Neither spoke, comfortable with the silence and each other. They did not see the Skull Bearer again. Bremen used magic to hide their tracks. Just enough to conceal their passing without calling attention to it. But it seemed the winged hunter had chosen not to go below the Streleheim in its search, for had it done so they would have sensed its presence. As it was, they sensed only the creatures who lived there and no others. For the moment at least, they were safe.

Kinson Ravenlock’s stride was tireless, its fluid movement honed and shaped from dozens of years of travel afoot through the Four Lands. The Borderman was big and strong, a man in the prime of his life, still able to rely on reflex and speed when the need arose. Bremen watched him admiringly, remembering his own youth, thinking how far down the path of his life he had traveled. The Druid Sleep had given him a longer life than most—a longer one than he was entitled to by nature’s law—but still it was not enough. He could feel his strength leaking from his body almost daily. He could still keep up with the Borderman when they traveled, but it was no longer possible to do so without the aid of his magic. He supplemented himself at almost every turn these days, and he knew that the time left to him in this world was growing short.

Still, he was confident in himself. He had always been so, and that more than anything had kept him strong and alive. He had come to the Druids as a young man, his training and skills in the fields of history and ancient tongues. Times had been much different then, the Druids still active in the evolution and development of the Races, still working to bring the Races together in the pursuit of common goals. It was only later, less than seventy years ago, that they had begun to withdraw from their involvement in favor of private study. Bremen had come to Paranor to learn, and he had never stopped wanting and needing to do so. But learning required more than closeted study and meditation. It required travel and interaction with others, discussions on subjects of mutual interest, an awareness of the tide of change in life that could only come from observance, and a willingness to accept that the old ways might not offer all the answers.

So it was that early on he accepted that magic might prove a more manageable and durable form of power than the sciences of the world before the Great Wars. All the knowledge gleaned from memories and books from the time of Galaphile forward had failed to produce what was needed of science. It was too fragmented, too removed in time from the civilization it was needed to serve, too obscure in its purpose to provide the keys to unlock the doors of understanding. But magic was another matter. Magic was older than science and more readily accessible. The Elves, who had come from that time, had knowledge of it. Though they had lived in hiding and isolation for many years, they possessed books and writings far more decipherable in their purpose than those of the old-world sciences. True, much was still missing, and the great magics of faerie were gone and would not be easily recovered.

But there was better hope for these than for the sciences over which the Druid Council continued to struggle.

But the Council remembered what evocation of magic had cost them in the First War of the Races, what had befallen Brona and his followers, and they were not about to unlock that door again.

Study of magic was permissible, but discouraged. It was treated as a curiosity with few usable tools, the practice in general not to be embraced as a doorway to the future under any circumstances.

Bremen had argued the point endlessly and without success. The majority of the Druids at Paranor were hidebound and not open to the possibility of change. Learn from your mistakes, they intoned.

Do not forget how dangerous the practice of magic can be. Best to forget your momentary interests in place of serious study. Bremen would not, of course—could not, in fact. It went counter to his nature to discard a possibility simply because it had failed once. Failed because of blatant misuse, he would remind them—something that did not necessarily have to happen a second time.

A few agreed with him. But in the end, when his persistence grew intolerable and he was banished from the Council, he departed alone.

He traveled then to the Westland and lived with the Elves for many years, studying their lore, poring over their writings, trying to recover some of what they had lost when the creatures of faerie gave way to mortal men. A few things he brought with him. The secret of the Druid Sleep was already his, though still in its rudimentary form. Mastery of its intricacies and acceptance of its consequences took time, and it did not serve as a useful tool until he was already quite old. The Elves embraced Bremen as a kindred spirit and gave him access to their store of small magics and all but forgotten writings. In time, he discovered treasures amid the discards. He went out into the other lands, discovering bits of magic there as well, though not so highly developed and in many instances foreign even to the people whom they served.

All the while he worked steadily to confirm his growing conviction that the rumors of the Warlock Lord and his Skull Bearers were true, that these were the rebel Druids who had fled Paranor all those years ago, that these were the creatures who had been defeated in the First War of the Races. But the proof had been like the scent of flowers carried on the wind, there one moment and gone the next. He had tracked it relentlessly, across borders and kingdoms, through villages near and far, from one tale to the next.

In the end, he had tracked it to the Skull Kingdom itself, to the heart of the Warlock Lord’s domain, there in the catacombs where he had concealed himself with the dark one’s minions, waiting out events that would allow him to escape with his truth. Had he been stronger, he might have gotten to that truth sooner. But it had taken him years to develop the skills necessary to survive a journey north. It had taken years of study and exploration. It might have taken less time had the Council supported him, had they put aside their superstitions and fears and embraced the possibilities as he had, but that had never happened.

He sighed, remembering it now. Thinking of it made him sad.

So much time wasted. So many opportunities missed. Perhaps it was already too late for those at Paranor. What could he say now to convince them of the danger they faced? Would they even believe him when he told them what he had discovered? It had been more than two years since he had visited the Keep. Some probably thought him dead. Some might even wish him so. It would not be easy to convince them that they had been wrong in their assumptions about the Warlock Lord, that they must rethink their commitment to the Races, and, most important, that they must reconsider their refusal to use magic.

They passed out of the deep forest as dawn broke, the light brightening from silver to gold as the sun crept over the rim of the Dragon’s Teeth and poured down through breaks in the trees to warm the damp earth. The trees thinned before them, reduced to small groves and solitary sentinels. Ahead, Paranor rose out of the misty light. The fortress of the Druids was a massive stone citadel seated on a foundation of rock that jutted from the earth like a fist.

The walls of the fortress rose skyward hundreds of feet to form towers and battlements bleached vivid white. Pennants flew at every turn, some honoring the separate insignia of the High Druids who had served, some marking the houses of the rulers of the Four Lands. Mist clung to the high reaches and swathed the darker shadows at the castle base where the sun had not yet burned away the night. It was an impressive sight, Bremen thought. Even now, even to him who was outcast.

Kinson glanced inquiringly over his shoulder, but Bremen nodded for him to go on. There was nothing to be gained by delay.

Still, the very size of the fortress gave him pause. The weight of its stone seemed to settle down across his shoulders, a burden he could not overcome. Such a massive, implacable force, he thought, mirroring in some sense the stubborn resolve of those who dwelled within. He wished it might be otherwise. He knew he must try to make it so.

They passed out of the trees, where the sunlight was still an intruder amid the shadows, and walked clear of the fading night down the roadway to approach the main gates. Already there were a handful of armed men emerging to meet them, part of the multinational force that served the Council as the Druid Guard. All were dressed in gray uniforms with a torch emblem embroidered in red on their left breast. Bremen looked for a recognizable face and found none. Well, he had been gone two years, after all. At least these were Elves set at watch, and Elves might hear him out.

Kinson moved aside deferentially and let him step to the fore.

He straightened himself, calling on the magic to give him added presence, to disguise the weariness he felt, to hide any weakness or doubt. He moved up to the gates determinedly, black robes billowing out behind him, Kinson a dark presence on his right. The guards waited, flat-faced and expressionless.

When he reached them, feeling them wilt just a bit with his approach, he said simply, “Good morning to all.”

“Good morning to you, Bremen,” replied one, stepping forward, offering a short bow.

“You know me then?”

The other nodded. “I know of you. I am sorry, but you are not allowed to enter.”

His eyes shifted to include Kinson. He was polite, but firm. No outcast Druids allowed. No members of the Race of Man either.

Discussion not advised.

Bremen glanced upward to the parapets as if considering the matter. “Who is Captain of the Guard?” he asked.

“Caerid Lock,” the other answered.

“Will you ask him to come down and speak with me?”

The Elf hesitated, pondering the request. Finally, he nodded.

“Please wait here.”

He disappeared through a side door into the Keep. Bremen and Kinson stood facing the remaining guards in the shadow of the fortress wall. It would have been an easy matter to go by them, to leave them standing there looking at nothing more than empty images, but Bremen had determined not to use magic to gain entry. His mission was too important to risk incurring the anger of the Council by circumventing their security and making them look foolish. They would not appreciate tricks. They might respect directness. It was a gamble he was willing to take.

Bremen turned and looked back at the forest. Sunlight probed its deep recesses now, chasing back the shadows, brightening the fragile stands of wildflowers. It was spring, he realized with a start. He had lost track of time on his journey north and back again, consumed with his search. He breathed the air, taking in a hint of the fragrance it bore from the woods. It had been a long time since he had thought about flowers.

There was movement in the doorway behind him, and he turned. The guard who had left reappeared and with him was Caerid Lock.

“Bremen,” the Elf greeted solemnly, and came up to offer his hand.

Caerid Lock was a slight, dark-complected man with intense eyes and a careworn face. His Elven features marked him distinctly, his brows slanted upward, his ears pointed, his face so narrow he seemed gaunt. He wore gray like the others, but the torch on his breast was gripped in a fist and there were crimson bars on both shoulders. His hair and beard were cut short and both were shot through with gray. He was one of a few who had remained friends with Bremen when the Druid was dismissed from the Council. He had been Captain of the Druid Guard for more than fifteen years, and there was not a better man anywhere for the job. An Elven Hunter with a lifetime of service, Caerid Lock was a thorough professional. The Druids had chosen well in determining who would protect them. More to the point, for Bremen’s purpose, he was a man they might listen to if a request was proffered.

“Caerid, well met,” the Druid replied, accepting the other’s hand. “Are you well?”

“As well as some I know. You’ve aged a few years since leaving us. The lines are in your face.”

“You see the mirror of your own, I’d guess.”

“Perhaps. Still traveling the world, are you?”

“In the good company of my friend, Kinson Ravenlock,” he introduced the other.

The Elf took the Borderman’s hand and measure by equal turns, but said nothing. Kinson was equally remote.

“I need your help, Caerid,” Bremen advised, turning solemn. “I must speak with Athabasca and the Council.”

Athabasca was High Druid, an imposing man of firm belief and unyielding opinion who had never much cared for Bremen. He was a member of the Council when the old man was dismissed, though he was not yet High Druid. That had come later, and then only through the complex workings of internal politics that Bremen so hated. Still, Athabasca was leader, for better or worse, and any chance of success in breaching these walls would necessarily hinge on him.

Caerid Lock smiled ruefully. “Why not ask me for something difficult? You know that Paranor and the Council both are forbidden to you. You cannot even enter these walls, let alone speak with the High Druid.”

“I can if he orders it,” Bremen said simply.

The other nodded. Sharp eyes narrowed. “I see. You want me to speak to him on your behalf.”

Bremen nodded. Caerid’s tight smile disappeared. “He doesn’t like you,” he pointed out quietly. “That hasn’t changed in your absence.”

“He doesn’t have to like me to talk with me. What I have to tell him is more important than personal feelings. I will be brief. Once he has heard me out, I will be on my way again.” He paused. “I don’t think I am asking too much, do you?”

Caerid Lock shook his head. “No.” He glanced at Kinson. “I will do what I can.”

He went back inside, leaving the old man and the Borderman to contemplate the walls and gates of the Keep. Their warders stood firmly in place, barring all entry. Bremen regarded them solemnly for a moment, then glanced toward the sun. The day was beginning to grow warm already. He looked at Kinson, then walked over to where the shadows provided a greater measure of shade and sat down on a stone outcropping. Kinson followed, but refused to sit. There was an impatient look in his dark eyes. He wanted this matter to be finished. He was ready to move on.

Bremen smiled inwardly. How like his friend. Kinson’s solution to everything was to move on. He had lived his whole life that way. It was only now, since they had met, that he had begun to see that nothing is ever solved if it isn’t faced. It wasn’t that Kinson wasn’t capable of standing up to life. He simply dealt with unpleasantness by leaving it behind, by outdistancing it, and it was true that things could be handled that way. It was just that there was never any permanent resolution.

Yes, Kinson had grown since those early days. He was a stronger man in ways that could not be readily measured. But Bremen knew that old habits died hard, and for Kinson Ravenlock the urge to walk away from the unpleasant and the difficult was always there.

“This is a waste of our time,” the Borderman muttered, as if to give credence to his thoughts.

“Patience, Kinson,” Bremen counseled softly.

“Patience? Why? They won’t let you in. And if they do, they won’t listen to you. They don’t want to hear what you have to say. These are not the Druids of old, Bremen.”

Bremen nodded. Kinson was right in that. But there was no help for it. The Druids of today were the only Druids there were, and some of them were not so bad. Some would still make worthy allies. Kinson would prefer they deal with matters on their own, but the enemy they faced was too formidable to be overcome without help. The Druids were needed. While they had abandoned their practice of direct involvement in the affairs of the Races, they were still regarded with a certain deference and respect. That would prove useful in uniting the Four Lands against their common enemy.

The morning wore on toward midday. Caerid Lock did not reappear. Kinson paced for a time, then finally sat down next to Bremen, frustration mirrored on his lean face. He sat wrapped in silence, wearing his darkest look.

Bremen sighed inwardly. Kinson had been with him a long time. Bremen had handpicked him from among a number of candidates for the task of ferreting out the truth about the Warlock Lord. Kinson had been the right choice. He was the best Tracker the old man had ever known. He was smart and brave and clever.

He was never reckless, always reasoned. They had grown so close that Kinson was like a son to him. He was certainly his closest friend.

But he could not be the one thing Bremen needed him to be. He could not be the Druid’s successor. Bremen was old and failing, though he hid it well enough from those who might suspect. When he was gone, there would be no one left to continue his work.

There would be no one to advance the study of magic so necessary to the evolution of the Races, no one to prod the recalcitrant Druids of Paranor into reconsidering their involvement with the Four Lands, and no one to stand against the Warlock Lord. Once, he had hoped that Kinson Ravenlock might be that man. The Borderman might still be, he supposed, but it did not seem likely.

Kinson lacked the necessary patience. He disdained any pretense of diplomacy. He had no time for those who could not grasp truths he felt were obvious. Experience was the only teacher he had ever respected. He was an iconoclast and a persistent loner. None of these characteristics would serve him well as a Druid, but it seemed impossible that he could ever be any different from the way he was.

Bremen glanced over at his friend, suddenly unhappy with his analysis. It was not fair to judge Kinson so. It was enough that the Borderman was as devoted as he was, enough that he would stand with him to the death if it was required. Kinson was the best of friends and allies, and it was wrong to expect more of him.

It was just that his need for a successor was so desperate! He was old, and time was slipping away too quickly.

He took his eyes from Kinson and looked off into the distant trees as if to measure what little remained.

It was past midday when Caerid Lock finally reappeared. He stalked out of the shadows of the doorway with barely a glance at the guards or Kinson and came directly to Bremen. The Druid climbed to his feet to greet him, his joints and his muscles cramped.

“Athabasca will speak with you,” the Captain of the Druid Guard advised, grim-faced.

Bremen nodded. “You must have worked hard to persuade him. I am in your debt, Caerid.”

The Elf grunted noncommittally. “I would not be so sure. Athabasca has his own reasons for agreeing to this meeting, I think.“ He turned to Kinson. ”I am sorry, but I could not gain entrance for you.”

Kinson straightened and shrugged. “I will be happier waiting here, I expect.”

“I expect,” agreed the other. “I will send you out some food and fresh water. Bremen, are you ready?”

The Druid looked at Kinson and smiled faintly. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

“Good luck to you,” his friend offered quietly.

Then Bremen was following Caerid Lock through the entry of the Keep and into the shadows beyond.

They walked down cavernous hallways and winding, narrow corridors in cool, dark silence, their footsteps echoing off the heavy stone. They encountered no one. It was as if Paranor were deserted, and Bremen knew that was not so. Several times, he thought he caught a whisper of conversation or a hint of movement somewhere distant from where they walked, but he could never be certain. Caerid was taking him down the back passageways, the ones seldom used, the ones kept solely for private comings and goings. It seemed understandable. Athabasca did not want the other Druids to know he was permitting this meeting until after he had decided if it was worth having. Bremen would be given a private audience and a brief opportunity to state his case, and then he would be either summarily dismissed or summoned to address the Council. Either way, the decision would be made quickly.

They began to climb a series of stairs toward the upper chambers of the Keep. Athabasca’s offices were well up in the tower, and it was likely that he intended to see Bremen there. The old man pondered Caerid Lock’s words as they proceeded. Athabasca would have his reasons for agreeing to this meeting, and they would not necessarily be immediately apparent. The High Druid was a politician first, an administrator second, and a functionary above all. This was not to demean him; it was simply to categorize the nature of his thinking. His primary focus would be one of cause and effect—that is, if one thing happened, how would it impact on another. That was the way his mind worked. He was able and organized, but he was calculating as well. Bremen would have to be careful in choosing his words.

They were almost to the end of a connecting corridor when a black-robed figure suddenly stepped out of the shadows to confront them. Caerid Lock instinctively reached for his short sword, but the other’s hands were already gripping the Elf’s arms and pinning them to his sides. With so little effort that it seemed to be an afterthought, the robed figure lifted Caerid from the floor and set him to one side like a minor impediment.

“There, there. Captain,” a rough voice soothed. “No need for weapons among friends. I’m after a quick word with your charge, and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Risca!” Bremen greeted in surprise. “Well met, old friend!”

“I’ll thank you to remove your hands, Risca,” snapped Caerid Lock irritably. “I wouldn’t be reaching for my weapons if you didn’t jump at me without announcing yourself!”

“Apologies, Captain,” the other purred. He took his hands away and held them up defensively. Then he looked at Bremen. “Welcome home, Bremen of Paranor.”

Risca came forward then into the light and embraced the old man. He was a bearded, bluff-faced Dwarf with tremendous shoulders, his compact body stocky and broad and heavily muscled. Arms like tree trunks crushed briefly and released, replaced by hands that were gnarled and callused. Risca was like a deeply rooted tree stump that nothing could dislodge, weathered by time and the seasons, impervious to age. He was a warrior Druid, the last who remained of that breed, skilled in the use of weapons and warfare, steeped in the lore of the great battles fought since the new Races had emerged. Bremen had trained him personally until his banishment from the Keep more than ten years ago. Through all that had happened, Risca had stayed his friend.

“Not of Paranor any longer, Risca,” Bremen demurred. “But it feels like home still. How have you been?”

“Well. But bored. There is little use for my talents behind these walls. Few of the new Druids have any interest in battle arts. I stay sharp practicing with the Guard. Caerid tests me daily.”

The Elf snorted. “You have me for breakfast daily, you mean. What are you doing here? How did you know to find us?”

Risca released Bremen and looked about mysteriously. “These walls have ears, for those who know how to listen.”

Caerid Lock laughed in spite of himself. “Spying— another finely honed art in the arsenal of warrior skills!”

Bremen smiled at the Dwarf. “You know why I’ve come?”

“I know you are to speak with Athabasca. But I wanted to speak with you first. No, Caerid. You may remain for this. I have no secrets I cannot reveal to you.” The Dwarf’s countenance turned serious. “There can be only one reason for your return, Bremen. And no news that can be welcome. So be it. But you will need allies in this, and I am one. Count on me to be your voice when it matters. I have seniority in the Council that few others who support you can offer. You need to know how matters stand, and they do not favor your return.”

“I hope to persuade Athabasca that our common need requires us to set aside our differences.” Bremen furrowed his brow thoughtfully. “It cannot be so difficult to accept this.”

Risca shook his head. “It can and it will. Be strong, Bremen. Do not defer to him. He dislikes what you represent—a challenge to his authority. Nothing you say or do will transcend that. Fear is a weapon that will serve you better than reason. Let him understand the danger.” He looked suddenly at Caerid. “Would you advise differently?”

The Elf hesitated, then shook his head. “No.”

Risca reached forward to grip Bremen’s hands once more. “I will speak with you later.”

He wheeled down the corridor and disappeared back into the shadows. Bremen smiled in spite of himself. Strong in body and mind, unyielding in all things. That was Risca. He would never change.

They continued on once more, the Elf Captain and the old man, navigating the dimly lit corridors and stairways, winding deeper into the Keep, until finally they came to a landing at the top of a flight of stairs that fronted a small, narrow, ironbound door.

Bremen had seen this door more than a few times in his years at the castle. It was the back entry to the offices of the High Druid.

Athabasca would be waiting within to receive him. He took a deep breath.

Caerid Lock tapped on the door three times, paused, then tapped once more. From within, a familiar voice rumbled, “Enter.”

The Captain of the Druid Guard pushed the narrow door open, then stepped aside. “I have been asked to wait here,” he advised softly.

Bremen nodded, amused by the solemnity he found in the other’s face. “I understand,” he said. “Thank you again, Caerid.”

Then he stooped to clear the low entry and moved inside.

The room was a familiar one. It was the exclusive chamber of the High Druid, a private retreat and meeting place for the Council’s leader. It was a large room with a high ceiling, tall windows of leaded glass, bookcases filled with papers, artifacts, diaries, files, and a scattering of books. Massive, ironbound double doors were centered on the front wall, across from where he stood. A huge desk rested at the chamber’s center, swept clean for the moment of everything, the wood surface burnished and shining in the candlelight.

Athabasca stood behind the desk, waiting. He was a big, heavyset, imperious man with a shock of flowing white hair and cold blue eyes set deep in a florid face. He wore the dark blue robes of the High Druid, which were belted at the waist and free of any insignia. Instead, he wore about his neck the Eilt Druin, the medallion of office of High Druids since the time of Galaphile.

The Eilt Druin was forged of gold and a small mix of strengthening metals and laced with silver trappings. It was molded in the shape of a hand holding forth a burning torch. The hand and the torch had been the symbol of the Druids since the time of their inception. The medallion was said to be magic, though no one had ever seen the magic used. The words “Eilt Druin” were Elven and meant literally “Through Knowledge, Power.”

Once, that motto had meant something for the Druids. Another of life’s small ironies, Bremen thought wearily.

“Well met, Bremen,” Athabasca greeted in his deep, sonorous voice. The greeting was traditional, but Athabasca’s rendering of it sounded hollow and forced.

“Well met, Athabasca,” Bremen replied. “I am grateful that you agreed to see me.”

“Caerid Lock was quite persuasive. Besides, we do not turn from our walls those who were once brethren.”

Once, but no more, he was saying. Bremen moved forward into the room to stand on the near side of the great desk, feeling himself separated from Athabasca by more than the broad expanse of its polished top. He wondered anew at how small the big man could make another feel in his presence, how like a little boy. For while Bremen was older by some years than Athabasca, he could not escape the sense that he stood in the presence of an elder.

“What would you tell me, Bremen?” Athabasca asked him.

“That the Four Lands stand in peril,” Bremen answered. “That the Trolls have been subjugated by a power that transcends physical life and mortal strength. That the other Races will fall as well if we do not intervene to protect them. That even the Druids are in great danger.”

Athabasca fingered the Eilt Druin absently. “What form does this threat take? Is it one of magic?”

Bremen nodded. “The rumors are true, Athabasca. The Warlock Lord is a real creature. But more, he is the reincarnation of the rebel Druid Brona, who was thought vanquished and destroyed more than three hundred years ago. He has survived, kept alive by malicious, reckless use of the Druid Sleep and by the destruction of his soul. He no longer has form, only spirit. Yet the fact remains that he lives and is the source of the danger that threatens.”

“You have seen him? You have searched him out in your travels?”

“I have.”

“How did you accomplish this? Did he permit you entry? Surely you must have entered in disguise.”

“I cloaked myself with a magic of invisibility for some of the journey. Then I cloaked myself in the dark trappings of the Warlock Lord’s own evil, a disguise that even he could not penetrate.”

“You made yourself one with him?” Athabasca had clasped his hands behind him. His eyes were steady and watchful.

“For a time, I became as he was. It was necessary to get close enough to make certain of my suspicions.”

“And what if by becoming one with him, you were in some way subverted, Bremen? What if by use of the magic you lost your perspective and your balance? How can you be certain that what you saw was not imagined? How can you know that the discovery you carry back to us is real?”

Bremen forced himself to stay calm. “I would know if the magic had subverted me, Athabasca. I have given years of my life to its study. I know it better than anyone.”

Athabasca smiled, chilly and doubting. “But that is exactly the point. How well can any of us appreciate the magic’s power? You broke from the Council to undertake on your own a study that you were warned against. You pursued the very same course that another once pursued—the creature you claim to hunt. It subverted him, Bremen. How can you be so certain that it has not subvened you as well? Oh, I am confident you believe you are impervious to its sway. But that was true of Brona and his followers, too. Magic is an insidious force, a power that transcends our understanding and cannot be relied upon. We have looked to its use before and been deceived. We look to its use still, but we are more cautious than we once were—cautious, because we have learned through the misfortune of Brona and the others what can happen. Yet how cautious have you been, Bremen? The magic subverts; that much we know. It subverts all who use it, one way or another, and in the end it destroys its user.”

Bremen kept his voice steady as he replied, “There are no absolutes to the results of its application, Athabasca. Subversion can come by degrees and in different forms, depending on the ways in which the magic is applied. But this was true with the old sciences as well. All applications of power subvert. That does not mean they cannot be utilized for a higher good. I know you do not approve of my work, but there is value to it. I do not regard the power of magic lightly. But neither do I disdain the limits of its possibilities.”

Athabasca shook his leonine head. “I think you are too close to your subject matter to judge it objectively. It was your failing when you left us.”

“Perhaps,” Bremen acknowledged quietly. “But none of this matters now. What matters is that we are threatened. The Druids, Athabasca. Brona surely remembers what led to his downfall in the First War of the Races. If he intends to try to conquer the Four Lands once more, as now seems probable, he will seek first to destroy what threatens him most. The Druids. The Council. Paranor.”

Athabasca regarded him solemnly for a moment, then turned and walked to one of the windows and stood looking out at the sunlight. Bremen waited a moment, then said, “I have come to ask that you allow me to address the Council. Allow me the chance to tell the others what I have seen. Let them weigh for themselves the merits of my argument.”

The High Druid turned back, chin lifted slightly so that he seemed to be looking down on Bremen. “We are a community within these walls, Bremen. We are a family. We live with one another as we would with brothers and sisters, engaged in a single course of action—to gain knowledge of our world and its workings, We do not favor one member of the community over another; we treat all as equals. This is something you have never been able to accept.”

Bremen started to protest, but Athabasca held up his hand for silence. “You left us on your own terms. You chose to abandon your family and your work for private pursuits. Your studies could not be shared with us, for they transgressed the lines of authority that we had established. The good of the one can never be allowed to displace the good of the whole. Families must have order. Each member of the family must have respect for the others. When you left us, you showed disrespect for the Council’s wishes in the matter of your studies. You felt you knew better than we did. You gave up your place in our society.”

He gave Bremen a cold look. “Now you would come back to us and be our leader. Oh, don’t bother with denials, Bremen! What else would you be but exactly that? You arrive with knowledge you claim is peculiar to yourself, with studies of power known only to you, and with a plan for the salvation of the Races that only you can implement. The Warlock Lord is real. The Warlock Lord is Brona. The rebel Druid has subverted the magic to his own use and tamed the Trolls. All will march against the Four Lands. You are our only hope. You must advise us on what we are to do and then command us in our duties as we set out to stop this travesty. You, who abandoned us for so long, must now lead.”

Bremen shook his head slowly. Already he knew how this must end, but he forged ahead anyway. “I would lead no one. I would advise on the danger I have discovered and nothing more. What happens after must be determined by you, as High Druid, and by the Council. I do not seek to return as a member of the Council. Simply hear me out, then send me on my way.”

Athabasca smiled. “You still believe so strongly in yourself. I am impressed. I admire you for your resolve, Bremen, but I think you misguided and deceived. Still, I am but one voice and not of a mind to make a decision on this by myself. Wait here with Captain Lock. I will call the Council together and ask it to consider your request. Will it choose to hear you or not? I shall leave it to them.”

He rapped sharply on the desk and the narrow back door to the chamber opened. Caerid Lock came through and saluted. “Stay with our guest,” Athabasca ordered, “until I return.”

Then he went out through the wide double doors at the front of the chamber without looking back.

Athabasca was gone for almost four hours. Bremen sat on a bench by one of the tall windows and stared out into the hazy light of the late afternoon. He waited patiently, knowing he could do little else. He talked with Caerid Lock for a time, catching up on the news of the Council’s work, discovering that it progressed in much the same way as it had for years, that little changed, that almost nothing was accomplished. It was depressing to hear, and Bremen soon gave up on pursuing his inquiries. He thought of what he would say to the Council and how its members might respond, but he knew in his heart it was an exercise in futility. He realized now why Athabasca had agreed to see him. The High Druid believed it better to admit him and hear him out than to dismiss him out of hand, better to give some semblance of consideration than to give none at all. But the decision was already made.

He would not be listened to. He was outcast, and he would not be allowed back in. Not for any reason, no matter how persuasive, how compelling. He was a dangerous man, in Athabasca’s mind—in the minds of others, too, he supposed. He used magic with disdain. He played with fire. There could be no listening to such a man. Not ever.

It was sad. He had come to warn them, but they were beyond his reach. He could feel it. He waited now only to have it confirmed.

Confirmation arrived swiftly on the heels of the four hours’ close. Athabasca came through the doors with the brusque attitude of a man with better things to get on to. “Bremen,” he greeted and dismissed him at the same time. He paid no attention to Caerid Lock at all, did not ask him to stay or go. “The Council has considered your request and rejected it. If you would like to submit it again in writing, it will be given to a committee to consider.” He sat down at his desk with a sheaf of papers and began studying them. The Eilt Druin glimmered brightly as it swung against his chest. “We are committed to a course of non-involvement with the Races, Bremen. What you seek would violate that rule. We must stay out of politics and inter-racial conflicts. Your speculations are too broad and entirely unsubstantiated. We cannot give them credence.”

He looked up. “You may supply yourself with whatever you need to continue your journey. Good luck to you. Captain Lock, please escort our guest back to the front gates.”

He looked down again. Bremen stared wordlessly, stunned in spite of himself at the abruptness of his dismissal. When Athabasca continued to ignore him, he said quietly, “You are a fool.”

Then he turned and followed Caerid back through the narrow door into the passageway that had brought them. Behind him, he heard the door close and lock.

Chapter Three

Caerid Lock and Bremen descended the back stairs in silence, their footsteps echoing in lonely cadence through the twisting passageway. Behind them, the light from the landing and the door leading to the High Druid Athabasca’s chambers receded into blackness. Bremen fought to contain the bitterness that welled up within him. He had called Athabasca a fool, but maybe he was the real fool. Kinson had been right. Coming to Paranor had been a waste of time. The Druids were not prepared to listen to their outcast brother. They were not interested in his wild imaginings, in his attempts to insinuate himself back into their midst. He could see them turning to one another with amused, sarcastic glances as the High Druid informed them of his request. He could see them shaking their heads in resentment. His arrogance had blinded him to the size of the obstacle that he was required to surmount in order to gain their belief. If he could just speak to them, they would listen, he had thought. But he had not gotten the chance to do even that much. His confidence had undone him. His pride had tricked him. He had miscalculated badly.

Still, he countered, trying to salvage something from his failed effort, he had been right to try. At least he did not have to live with the guilt and pain he might feel later for having done nothing. Nor could he be certain of the result of his effort. Some good might yet come of his appearance, a small change in events and attitudes that he would not be able to discern until much later. It was wrong to dismiss his effort out of hand. Kinson might have been right about the end result, but neither of them could know that nothing would come of this visit.

“I am sorry you were not allowed to speak, Bremen,” Caerid said quietly, glancing over his shoulder.

Bremen looked up, aware how depressed he must seem. This was no time for self-indulgence. He had lost his chance to speak directly to the Council, but there were other tasks to be completed before he was dismissed from the Keep forever, and he must see to them.

“Caerid, would there be time for me to visit Kahle Rese before leaving?” he asked. “I need only a few moments.”

They stopped on the stairs and regarded each other, the frail-looking old man and the weathered Elf. “You were told to gather what you needed for your journey,” Caerid Lock observed. “There was nothing said about what those needs might be. I think a short visit would be in order.”

Bremen smiled. “I will never forget your efforts on my behalf, Caerid. Never.”

The other man gave a short wave of dismissal. “They were nothing, Bremen. Come.”

They continued along the stairs to a back passageway that took them through several doors and down another flight of stairs. All the time, Bremen was thinking. He had given his warning, for better or worse. It would be ignored by most, but those who would harken to it must be given what chance there was to survive the foolishness of the others. In addition, some effort must be made to protect the Keep. There was not a great deal he could do in the face of the Warlock Lord’s power, but he must do what little he could.

He would begin with Kahle Rese, his oldest and most trusted friend—even though he knew that once again he faced almost certain disappointment in his intended effort.

When they reached the doorway that led into the main hall, just a short distance from the libraries where Kahle spent his days, Bremen turned again to Caerid.

“Will you do me one more favor?” he asked the Elf. “Will you summon Risca and Tay Trefenwyd to speak with me? Have them wait in the passageway until I finish my visit with Kahle. I will meet them there. I give you my word I will go nowhere else and do nothing to violate the terms of my visit.”

Caerid looked away. “Your word is not necessary, Bremen. It never has been. Have your visit with Kahle. I’ll bring the other two and meet you here.”

He turned and went back up the stairs into the gloom. Bremen thought how lucky he was to be able to count Caerid among his friends. He remembered Caerid as a young man, still learning his craft, but intense and steady even then. Caerid had come from Arborlon and stayed on past his initial appointment, committed to the Druid cause. It was rare for a non-Druid to take such an interest. He wondered if Caerid would do so again, if given the chance to live his life over.

He stepped through the door into the corridor beyond and turned right. The hall was arched and framed with great wooden beams that gleamed with polish and wax. Tapestries and paintings hung from the castle walls. Pieces of ancient furniture and old armor occupied protected space in small alcoves, lit by slowburning candles. Age and time were captured within these walls where nothing changed but the hours of the day and the passing of the seasons. There was a sense of permanence to Paranor, the oldest and strongest fortress in the Four Lands, the guardian of its givers of knowledge, the keeper of its most precious artifacts and tomes. What few advancements had been made coming out of the wilderness of the Great Wars had originated here. Now it was all in danger of ending, of being forever lost, and only he seemed aware of it.

He reached the library doors, opened them quietly, and stepped inside. The room was small for a library, but it was crammed with books. There were few books to be found since the destruction of the old world, and most of those had been compiled by the Druids in the last two hundred years, painstakingly recorded by hand from the memories and observations of the handful of men and women who still remembered. Almost all were stored here, in this room and the next, and Kahle Rese was the Druid responsible for their safekeeping. All had value, but none more so than the Druid Histories, the books that chronicled the results of the Council’s efforts to recover the lost knowledge of science and magic from the centuries before the Great Wars, of its attempts at uncovering the secrets of power that had given the old world the greatest of its advancements, and of its detailing of all possibilities however remote concerning devices and formulas, talismans and conjuring, reasoning and deductions that might one day find understanding.

The Druid Histories. These were the books that mattered most to Bremen. These were the books that he intended to save.

Kahle Rese was standing on a ladder arranging a worn and shabby collection of leather-bound tomes when Bremen entered.

He turned and started when he saw who was standing there. He was a small, wiry man, hunched slightly with age, but nimble enough to climb still. There was dust on his hands, and the sleeves of his robe were rolled up and tied. His blue eyes blinked and crinkled as a smile lit his face. Quickly he scurried down the ladder and came over. He held out his hands and gripped Bremen’s own tightly.

“Old friend,” he greeted. His narrow face was like a bird’s—eyes sharp and bright, nose a hooked beak, mouth a tight line, and beard a small, wispy tuft on his pointed chin.

“It is good to see you, Kahle,” Bremen told him. “I have missed you. Our conversations, our puzzling through of the world’s mysteries, our assessments of life. Even our poor attempt at jokes. You must remember.”

“I do, Bremen, I do.” The other laughed. “Well, here you are.”

“For a moment only, I’m afraid. Have you heard?”

Kahle nodded. The smile slipped from his face. “You came to give warning of the Warlock Lord. Athabasca gave it for you. You asked to speak to the Council. Athabasca spoke for you. Took rather a lot on himself, didn’t he? But he has his reasons, as we both know. In any case, the Council voted against you. A few argued quite vigorously on your behalf. Risca, for one. Tay Trefenwyd. One or two more.” He shook his head. “I am afraid I remained silent.”

“Because it did no good for you to speak,” Bremen said helpfully.

But Kahle shook his head. “No, Bremen. Because I am too old and tired for causes. I am comfortable here among my books and seek only to be left alone.” He blinked and looked Bremen over carefully. “Do you believe what you say about the Warlock Lord? Is he real? Is he the rebel Druid, Brona?”

Bremen nodded. “He is what I have told Athabasca and a great threat to Paranor and the Council. He will come here eventually, Kahle. When he does, he will destroy everything.”

“Perhaps,” Kahle acknowledged with a shrug. “Perhaps not. Things do not always happen as we expect. You and I were always agreed on that, Bremen.”

“But this time, I’m afraid, there is little chance they will happen any other way than I have forecast. The Druids spend too much time within their walls. They cannot see with objectivity what is happening without. It limits their vision.”

Kahle smiled. “We have our eyes and ears, and we learn more than you suspect. Our problem is not one of ignorance; it is one of complacency. We are too quick to accept the life we know and not quick enough to embrace the life we only imagine. We think that events must proceed as we dictate, and that no other voice will ever have meaning but ours.”

Bremen put his hand on the small man’s narrow shoulder. “You were always the best reasoned of us all. Would you consider making a short journey with me?”

“You seek to rescue me from what you perceive to be my fate, do you?” The other man laughed. “Too late for that, Bremen. My fate is tied irrevocably to these walls and the writings of these few books I manage. I am too old and too set in my ways to give up a lifetime’s work. This is all I know. I am one of those Druids I described, old friend—hidebound and moribund to the last. What happens to Paranor happens also to me.”

Bremen nodded. He had thought Kahle Rese would say as much, but he had needed to ask. “I wish you would reconsider. There are other walls to live within and other libraries to tend.”

“Are there?” Kahle asked, arching one eyebrow. “Well, they wait for other hands, I suspect. I belong here.”

Bremen sighed. “Then help me in another way, Kahle. I pray I am wrong in my assessment of the danger. I pray I am mistaken in what I think will occur. But if I am not, and if the Warlock Lord comes to Paranor, and if the gates should not hold against him, then someone must act to save the Druid Histories.” He paused.

“Are they still kept separate within the adjoining room—behind the bookcase door?”

“Still and always,” Kahle advised.

Bremen reached into his robes and withdrew a small leather pouch. “Within is a special dust,” he told his friend. “If the Warlock Lord should come within these walls, throw it across the Druid Histories, and they will be sealed away. The dust will hide them. The dust will keep them safe.”

He handed the pouch to Kahle, who accepted it reluctantly. The wizened Druid held the pouch out in the cup of his hand as if to measure its worth. “Elf magic?” he asked, and Bremen nodded.

“Some form of faerie dust, I suppose. Some form of old-world sorcery.” He grinned mischievously. “Do you know what would happen to me if Athabasca found this in my possession?”

“I do,” Bremen replied solemnly. “But he won’t find it, will he?”

Kahle regarded the pouch thoughtfully for a moment, then tucked it into his robes. “No,” he agreed, “he won’t.” His brow furrowed. “But I am not sure I can promise I will use it, no matter what the cause. I am like Athabasca in this one matter, Bremen. I am opposed to involvement of the magic in the carrying out of my duties. I deplore magic as a means to any end. You know that. I have made it plain enough before, haven’t I?”

“You have.”

“And still you ask me to do this?”

“I must. Who else can I turn to? Who else can I trust? I leave it to your good judgment, Kahle. Use the dust only if circumstances are so dire that the lives of all are threatened and no one will be left to care for the books. Do not let them fall into the hands of those who will misuse the knowledge. That would be worse than any imagined result of employing magic.”

Kahle regarded him solemnly, then nodded. “It would, indeed. Very well. I will keep the dust with me and use it should the worst come to pass. But only then.”

They faced each other in the ensuing silence, all the words spoken, nothing left to say.

“You should reconsider your decision to come with me,” Bremen tried a final time.

Kahle smiled, a brittle twist of his thin mouth. “You asked me to come with you once before, when you chose to leave Paranor and pursue your studies of the magic elsewhere. I told you then I would never leave, that this is where I belong. Nothing has changed.”

Bremen felt a bitter helplessness creep through him, and he smiled quickly to keep it from showing. “Then goodbye, Kahle Rese, my oldest and greatest friend. Keep well.”

The small man embraced him, hands gripping the old man’s slender frame and holding fast. “Goodbye, Bremen.” His voice was a whisper. “This one time, I hope you are wrong.”

Bremen nodded wordlessly. Then he turned and went out the library door without looking back. He found himself wishing that things could be different, knowing they could not. He moved swiftly down the hallway to the door that opened into the back stairs passageway that had brought him. He found himself looking at the tapestries and artifacts as if he had never seen them—or perhaps as if he would never see them again. He felt some part of himself slipping away, just as it had when he left Paranor the first time. He did not like to admit it, but this was still more home to him than any other place, and as it was with all homes, it laid claim to him in ways that could not be judged or measured.

He went through the door into the near darkness of the landing beyond and found himself face-to-face with Risca and Tay Trefenwyd.

Tay came forward immediately and embraced him. “Welcome home, Druid,” he said, clapping the old man on the back.

Tay was an Elf of unusual height and size, lanky and rather awkward-looking, as if he were constantly in danger of tripping over his own feet. His face was decidedly Elven, but his head seemed to have been grafted onto his body by mistake. He was young still, even with fifteen years of service at Paranor, his face smooth and clean-shaven. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and always bore a ready smile for everyone.

“You look well, Tay,” the old man replied, giving the other a quick smile in return. “Life at Paranor agrees with you.”

“Seeing you again agrees with me more,” the other declared. “When are we leaving?”

“Leaving?”

“Bremen, don’t be coy. Leaving for wherever it is you are going. Risca and I are decided. Even if you hadn’t called us to meet with you, we would have caught up with you on your way out. We have had enough of Athabasca and the Council.”

“You were not there to witness their performance,” Risca sneered, shouldering into the light. “A travesty. They gave your request the same consideration they would an invitation to become a victim of the plague! There was no debate allowed or reasoning undertaken! Athabasca presented your request in such a manner that there was no doubt where he stood. Others backed him up, sycophants all. Tay and I did our best to condemn his machinations, but we were shouted down. I have had enough of their politics, enough of their shortsightedness. If you say the Warlock Lord exists, then he exists. If you say he is coming to Paranor, then come he will. But I will not be here to greet him. Let those others stand in my place. Shades, how can they be such fools?”

Risca was all brawn and heat, and Bremen smiled in spite of himself. “So you gave a good account of yourselves on my behalf?”

“We were small whispers in a windstorm,” Tay laughed. His arms lifted and fell helplessly within his dark robes. “Risca is right. Politics rule at Paranor. They have since Athabasca became First Druid. You should have held that position, Bremen, not him.”

“You could have been First Druid, if you had wanted to be,” Risca pointed out irritably. “You should have insisted.”

“No,” said Bremen, “I would not have done the job well, my friends. I was never one for administration and management. I was meant to seek out and recover what was lost, and I could not do that from the high tower. Athabasca was a better choice than I.”

“Hogwash!” snapped Risca. “He has never been a good choice for anything. He resents you even now. He knows that his office was yours for the asking, and he has never forgiven you for that. Nor that you could walk away from it. Your freedom threatens his reliance on order and obedience. He would have us all placed carefully on a shelf and taken down when it suits his purpose. He would dictate our lives as if we were children. You escaped his reach by leaving Paranor, and he will not forgive you that.”

Bremen shrugged. “Ancient history. I regret only that he would not pay greater heed to my warning. I think the Keep in real danger. The Warlock Lord comes this way, Risca. He will not step around Paranor and the Druids. He will grind them beneath his army’s boots.”

“What are we to do?” Tay pressed, glancing about as if afraid someone might be listening. “We have continued practicing our magic, Bremen. Each of us, Risca and I, in our own way, employing our own disciplines. We knew you would come back for us someday. We knew the magic would be needed.”

Bremen nodded, pleased. He had relied on these two above all the others to pursue their conjuring skills. They were not as learned or practiced as he, but they were able enough. Risca was the weapons master, skilled in the war arts, in the study of arms. Tay Trefenwyd was a student of the elements, of the forces that created and destroyed, of the balance of earth, air, fire, and water in the evolution of life. Each was an adept, just as he, capable of summoning magic when called upon to protect and defend. The practice of magic was forbidden within the walls of Paranor, except under strict supervision. Conjuring was undertaken almost exclusively on a basis of need. Experimentation was discouraged and often punished if discovered. The Druids lived in the shadow of their own history and the dark memory of Brona and his followers. They had been rendered moribund by guilt and indecision.

They could not seem to understand that their ill-conceived course of action threatened to swallow them whole.

“You were right in your assumptions,” he told them. “I relied on you not to abandon the magic. And I do want you to come with me. I will need your skills and your strength in the days ahead. Tell me, are there any others we can call upon? Others, who have accepted the need for magic’s use?”

Tay and Risca exchanged a brief glance. “None,” said the latter.

“You must make do with us.”

“You shall do fine,” Bremen advised, his aged face crinkling with the smile he forced upon himself. Only these two to join Kinson and himself! Only these two against so many! He sighed.

Well, he should have expected as much, he supposed. “I am sorry I must ask this of you,” he said, and genuinely meant it.

Risca snorted. “I should feel slighted if you did not. I am bored to tears of Paranor and her old men. No one cares for the practice of my craft. No one follows in my footsteps. I am an anachronism to all. Tay feels as I do. We would have left long ago if we had not agreed to wait for you.”

Tay nodded. “It is no cause for sadness to find you in need of traveling companions, Bremen. We are quite ready.”

Bremen took each by the hand and thanked him. “Gather what you would carry with you and meet me by the front gates tomorrow morning. I will tell you of our journey then. Tonight, I will sleep without in the forest with my companion, Kinson Ravenlock. He has accompanied me these two years past and proven invaluable. He is a Tracker and a scout, a Borderman of great courage and resolve.”

“If he travels with you, he needs no other recommendation,” said Tay. “We will leave now. Caerid Lock waits for you somewhere on the stairs below. He asks that you descend until you come upon him.” Tay paused meaningfully. “Caerid would be a good man to have with us, Bremen.”

The old man nodded. “I know. I will ask him to come. Rest well. I will see you both at sunrise.”

The Dwarf and the Elf slipped through the passageway door and closed it softly behind them, leaving Bremen alone on the landing. He stood there for a moment, thinking of what he must do next. Silence surrounded him, deep and pervasive within the fortress walls. Time slipped away. He did not require much of it, but he would have to be quick in any case.

And he would need Caerid Lock’s cooperation.

He hurried down the stairway, intent on his plan, mulling over the details in his mind. The musty smell of the close passage assailed his nostrils, causing his nose to wrinkle. Elsewhere, in the main corridors and stairways of the Keep, the air would be clean and warm, carried up from the fire pit that heated the castle throughout the year. Dampers and vents controlled the airflow, but none of these were present in hidden passages like this one.

He found the Captain of the Druid Guard two landings farther down, standing alone in the shadows. He came forward at Bremen’s approach, his worn face impassive.

“I thought you might visit more comfortably with your friends alone,” he said.

“Thank you,” Bremen replied, touched at the other’s consideration. “But we would have you be one of us, Caerid. We leave at sunrise. Will you come?”

Caerid smiled faintly. “I thought that might be your plan. Risca and Tay are eager enough to depart Paranor— that’s no secret.” He shook his head slowly. “But as for me, Bremen, my duty lies here. Especially if what you believe is true. Someone must protect the Druids of Paranor, even from themselves. I am best suited. The Guard is mine, all handpicked, all trained under my command. It would not do for me to abandon them now.”

Bremen nodded. “I suppose not. Still, it would be good to have you with us.”

Caerid almost smiled. “It would be good to come. But the choice is made.”

“Then keep careful watch within these walls, Caerid Lock.”

Bremen fixed him with his gaze. “Be certain of the men you lead. Are there Trolls among them? Are there any who might betray you?”

The Captain of the Druid Guard shook his head firmly. “None. All will stand with me to the death. Even the Trolls. I would bet my life on it, Bremen.”

Bremen smiled gently. “And so you do.” He glanced about momentarily as if seeking someone. “He will come, Caerid—the Warlock Lord with his winged minions and mortal followers and perhaps creatures summoned out of some dark pit. He will descend on Paranor and attempt to crush you. You must watch your back, my friend.”

The seasoned veteran nodded. “He’ll find us ready.” He held the other’s gaze. “It’s time to take you back down to the gates. Would you like to take some food with you?”

Bremen nodded. “I would.” Then he hesitated. “I almost forgot.

Would it be possible for me to have one final word with Kahle Rese? I am afraid we left each other under rather strained circumstances, and I would like to correct that before I go away. Could you give me just a few minutes more, Caerid? I will come right back.”

The Elf considered the request silently for a moment, then nodded. “Very well. But hurry, please. I have already stretched Athabasca’s instructions to their limit.”

Bremen smiled disarmingly and went back up the stairs once more. He hated lying to Caerid Lock, but there was no reasonable alternative open to him. The Captain of the Druid Guard would never have been able to sanction what he was about to do under any circumstances, friend or no. Bremen ascended two levels, passed through a doorway into a secondary passage, quickly followed it to its end, then went through yet another door to a second set of stairs, this one more narrow and steep than the first. He went quietly and with great care. He could not afford to be discovered now. What he was about to do was forbidden. If he was observed, Athabasca might well cast him into the deepest dungeon and leave him there for all time.

At the head of the narrow stairs he stopped before a massive wooden door secured by locks made fast with chains as thick as his aged wrists. He touched the locks carefully, one after the other, and with small snicks they fell open. He released the chains from their securing rings, pushed at the door, and watched with a mix of relief and trepidation as it swung slowly away.

He stepped through then and found himself on a platform high up within the Druid’s Keep. Below, the walls fell away into a black pit that was said to core all the way to the center of the earth.

No one had ever descended to its bottom and returned. No one had ever been able to cast a light deep enough to see what was down there. The Druid Well, it was called. It was a place into which the discards of time and fate had been cast—of magic and science, of the living and the dead, of mortal and immortal. It had been there since the time of faerie. Like the Hadeshorn in the Valley of Shale, it was one of the few doorways that connected the worlds of life and afterlife. There were tales of how it had been used over the years and of the terrible things it had swallowed. Bremen had no interest in the tales. What mattered was that he had determined long ago that the pit was a shaft that channeled magic from realms no living soul had ever visited, and within the blackness that cloaked its secrets lay power that no creature would dare to challenge.

Standing at its edge, he lifted his arms and began to chant. His voice was soft and steady, his conjuring studied and deliberate. He did not look down, even when he heard the stirrings and the sighs from within the depths. He moved his hands slightly, weaving out the symbols that commanded obedience. He spoke the words without hesitation, for even the slightest waver could bring the spell to an end and doom his effort.

When he was finished, he reached into his robes and withdrew a pinch of greenish powder, which he cast into the void. The powder sparkled with wicked intent as it fluttered on the air currents, seeming to grow in size, to multiply until the few grains had turned to thousands. Momentarily, they hung suspended, shining in the near black, and then they winked out and were gone.

Bremen stepped back quickly, breathing hard, feeling his courage fail as he leaned against the cold stone of the tower wall.

He had not the strength that he once had. He had not the resolve.

He closed his eyes and waited for the stirrings and the sighs to fade back into silence. Use of the magic required such effort! He wished he were young again. He wished he had a young man’s body and determination. But he was old and failing, and it was pointless to wish for the impossible. He must make do with the body and determination he had.

Something scraped on the stone walls below him—a rasp of claws perhaps, or of scales.

Climbing to see if the spell caster was still there!

Collecting himself, Bremen stumbled back through the door and pushed it closed tightly behind him. His heart still beat wildly, and his face was coated in a sheen of sweat. Leave this place, a harsh voice whispered from somewhere beyond the door, from far down in the pit. Leave it now!

Hands shaking, Bremen resecured the locks and chains. Then he scurried back down the narrow stairs and through the empty passageways of the Keep to rejoin Caerid Lock.

Chapter Four

Bremen and Kinson Ravenlock spent the night in the forest some distance back from Paranor and the Druids.

They found a grove of spruce that provided reasonable concealment, wary even here of the winged hunters that prowled the night skies. They ate their dinner cold, a little bread, cheese, and spring apples washed down with ale, and talked over the day’s events. Bremen revealed the results of his attempts to address the Druid Council and reported his conversations with those he had spoken to within the Keep. Kinson confined himself to sober nods and muttered grunts of disappointment and had the presence of mind and good manners not to tell the older man, when advised of his failure to convince Athabasca, that he had told him so.

They slept then, worn from the long trek down out of the Streleheim and the many nights spent sleepless before. They took turns keeping watch, not trusting even the close presence of the Druids to keep them safe. Neither really believed he would be safe anywhere for some time to come. The Warlock Lord moved where he wished these days, and his hunters were his eyes in every comer of the Four Lands. Bremen, standing watch first, thought he sensed something at one point, a presence that nudged at his warning instincts from somewhere close at hand. It was midnight, he was nearing the end of his duty and beginning to think of sleep, and he almost missed it. But nothing showed itself, and the prickly feeling that ran the length of his spine faded almost as quickly as it had come.

Bremen’s sleep was deep and dreamless, but he was awake before sunrise and thinking of what he must do next in his efforts to combat the threat of the Warlock Lord when Kinson appeared out of the shadows on cat’s feet and knelt next to him.

“There is a girl here to see you,” he said.

Bremen nodded wordlessly and rose to a sitting position. The night was fading into paler shades of gray, and the sky east was faintly silver along the edge of the horizon. The forest about them felt empty and abandoned, a vast dark labyrinth of shaggy boughs and canopied limbs that enclosed and sealed like a tomb.

“Who is she?” the old man asked.

Kinson shook his head. “She didn’t give her name. She appears to be one of the Druids. She wears their robe and insignia.”

“Well, well,” Bremen mused, rising now to his feet. His muscles ached and his joints felt stiff and unwieldy.

“She offered to wait, but I knew you would be awake already.”

Bremen yawned. “I grow too predictable for my own good. A girl, you say? Not many women, let alone girls, serve with the Druids.”

“I didn’t think they did either. In any case, she seems to offer no threat, and she is quite intent on speaking with you.”

Kinson sounded indifferent to the outcome of the matter, meaning that he thought it was probably a waste of time. Bremen straightened his rumpled robes. They could do with a washing.

For that matter, so could he. “Did you see anything of the winged hunters on your watch?”

Kinson shook his head. “But I felt their presence. They prowl these forests, make no mistake. Will you speak with her?”

Bremen looked at him. “The girl? Of course. Where is she?”

Kinson led him from the shelter of the spruce to a small clearing less than fifty feet away. The girl stood there, a dark and silent presence. She wasn’t very big, rather short and slightly built, wrapped in her robes, the hood pulled up to conceal her face. She didn’t move as he came into view, but stood there waiting for him to approach first.

Bremen slowed. It interested him that she had found them so easily. They had deliberately camped well back in the trees to make it difficult for anyone to discover them while they slept. Yet this girl had done so—at night and without the benefit of any light but that of stars and moon where it penetrated the heavy canopy of limbs. She was either a very good Tracker or she had the use of magic.

“Let me speak with her alone,” he told Kinson.

He crossed the clearing to where she stood, limping slightly as his joints attempted to unlimber. She lowered the hood now so that he could see her. She was very young, but not a girl as Kinson had thought. She had close-cut black hair and enormous dark eyes.

Her features were delicate and her face smooth and guileless. She was indeed dressed in Druid robes, and she wore the raised hand and burning torch of the Eilt Drain sewn on her breast.

“My name is Mareth,” she told him as he came up to her, and she held out her hand.

Bremen took it in his own. Her hand was small, but her grip was strong and the skin of her palm hardened by work. “Mareth,” he greeted.

She took back her hand. Her gaze was steady and held his own, her voice low and compelling. “I am a Druid apprentice, not yet accepted into the order, but allowed to study in the Keep. I came here ten months ago as a Healer. I came from several years of study in the Silver River country, then two years in Storlock. I began my study of healing when I was thirteen. My family lives in the Southland, below Leah.”

Bremen nodded. If she had been allowed to study healing at Storlock, she must have talent. “What do you wish of me, Mareth?” he asked her gently.

The dark eyes blinked. “I want to come with you.”

He smiled faintly. “You don’t even know where I’m going.”

She nodded. “It doesn’t matter. I know what cause you serve. I know that you take the Druids Risca and Tay Trefenwyd with you. I want to be part of your company. Wait. Before you say anything, hear me out. I will leave Paranor whether you take me with you or not. I am in disfavor here, with Athabasca in particular. The reason I am in disfavor is that I choose to pursue the study of magic when it has been forbidden me. I am to be a Healer only, it has been decided. I am to use the skills and learning the Council feels appropriate.”

For a woman, Bremen thought she might add, the phrase hidden in the words she spoke.

“I have learned all that they have to teach me,” she continued. “They will not admit this, but it is so. I need a new teacher. I need you. You know more about the magic than anyone. You understand its nuances and demands, the complications of employing it, the difficulties of assimilating it into your life. No one else has your experience. I would like to study with you.”

He shook his head slowly. “Mareth, where I go, no one who is not experienced should venture.”

“It will be dangerous?” she asked.

“Even for me. Certainly for Risca and Tay, who at least know something of the magic’s use. But especially for you.”

“No,” she said quietly, clearly ready for this argument. “It will not be as dangerous for me as you think. There is something about me that I haven’t told you yet. Something that no one knows here at Paranor, although I think Athabasca suspects. I am not entirely unskilled. I have use of magic beyond that which I would master from study. I have magic born to me.”

Bremen stared. “Innate magic?”

“You do not believe me,” she said at once.

In truth, he did not. Innate magic was unheard of. Magic was acquired through study and practice, not inherited. At least, not in these times. It had been different in the time of faerie, of course, when magic was as much a part of a creature’s inherited character as the makeup of his blood and tissue. But no one in the Four Lands for as long as anyone could remember had been born with magic.

No one human.

He continued to stare at her.

“The difficulty with my magic, you see,” she continued, “is that I cannot always control it. It comes and goes in spurts of emotion, in the rise and fall of my temperature, in the fits and starts of my thinking, and with a dozen other vicissitudes I cannot entirely manage. I can command it to me, but then sometimes it does what it will.”

She hesitated, and for the first time her gaze fell momentarily before lifting again to meet his own. When she spoke, he thought he detected a hint of desperation in her low voice. “I must be wary of everything I do. I am constantly hiding bits and pieces of myself, keeping careful watch over my behavior, my reactions, even my most innocent habits.” She compressed her lips. “I cannot continue to live like this. I came to Paranor for help. I have not found it. Now I am turning to you.”

She paused and then added, “Please.”

There was a poignancy in that single word that surprised him.

For just a moment she lost her composure, the iron-willed, hardened appearance she had perfected in order to protect herself.

He didn’t know yet if he believed her; he thought that maybe he did. But he was certain that her need, whatever its nature, was very real.

“I will bring something useful to your company if you take me with you,” she said quietly. “I will be a faithful ally. I will do what is required of me. If you should be forced to stand against the Warlock Lord or his minions, I will stand with you.” She leaned forward in a barely perceptible morion, little more than an inclining of her dark head. “My magic,” she confided in a small voice, “is very powerful.”

He reached for her hand and held it between his own. “If you will agree to wait until after sunrise, I will give this matter some thought,“ he told her. ”I will have to confer with the others, with Tay and Risca when they arrive.”

She nodded and looked past him. “And your big friend?”

“Yes, with Kinson also.”

“But he has no skill with magic, does he? Like the rest of you?”

“No, but he is skilled in other ways. You can sense that about him, can you? That he is without the use of magic?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me. Did you use magic to find us here in this concealment?”

She shook her head. “No. It was instinct. I could sense you. I have always been able to do that.” She stared at him, catching the look in his eye. “Is that a form of magic, Bremen?”

“It is. Not a magic you can identify as easily as some, but magic nonetheless. Innate magic, I might add—absent acquired skill.”

“I have no acquired skill,” she said quietly, folding her arms into her robes as if she were suddenly cold.

He studied her for a moment, thinking. “Sit there, Mareth,” he said finally, pointing to a spot behind her. “Wait with me for the others.”

She did as she was asked. Moving to a patch of grass that had grown up where the trees did not shut out the sun, she folded her legs beneath her and seated herself in the huddle of her robes, a small dark statue. Bremen watched her for a moment, then moved back across the clearing to where Kinson waited.

“What did she want?” the Borderman asked, turning away with him to walk to the edge of the trees.

“She has asked to come with us,” Bremen answered.

Kinson arched one eyebrow speculatively. “Why would she want to do that?”

Bremen stopped and faced him. “She hasn’t told me yet.” He glanced over to where she was seated. “She gave me reasons enough to consider her request, but she is keeping something from me still.”

“So you will refuse her?”

Bremen smiled. “We will wait for the others and talk it over.”

The wait was a short one. The sun rose out of the hills and crested the forest rim minutes later, spilling light down into the shadowed recesses, chasing back the last of the gloom. Color returned to the land, shades of green, brown, and gold amid the fading dark, and birds came awake to sing their welcome to a new day. Mist clung tenaciously to the darker alcoves of the brightening woods, and through a low curtain that yet masked the walls of Paranor walked Risca and Tay Trefenwyd. Both had abandoned their Druid robes in favor of traveling clothes. Both wore backpacks slung loosely across their broad shoulders. The Elf was armed with a longbow and a slender hunting knife. The Dwarf carried a short, two-handed broadsword, had a battle-axe cinched at his waist, and bore a cudgel as thick as his forearm.

They came directly to Bremen and Kinson without seeing Mareth. As they reached him, she rose once more and stood waiting.

Tay saw her first, glancing back at the unexpected movement caught from the comer of one eye. “Mareth,” he said quietly.

Risca looked with him and grunted.

“She asks to travel with us,” Bremen announced, forgoing any preliminaries. “She claims she might be useful to us.”

Risca grunted again, shifting his bulk away from the girl. “She is a child,” he muttered.

“She is out of favor with Athabasca for trying to study magic,” Tay said, turning to look at her. The smile on his Elven face broadened. “She shows promise. I like her determination. Athabasca doesn’t frighten her one bit.”

Bremen looked at him. “Can she be trusted?”

Tay laughed. “What a strange question. Trusted with what? Trusted to do what? There’s some who say no one’s to be trusted but you and me, and I can only speak for me.” He paused and cocked his head toward Kinson. ”Good morning, Borderman. I am Tay Trefenwyd.”

The Elf shook hands with Kinson; then Risca made his greeting as well. Bremen apologized for forgetting introductions. The Borderman said he was used to it and shrugged meaningfully.

“Well, then, the girl.” Tay brought the conversation back around to where it had started. “I like her, but Risca is right. She is very young. I don’t know if I want to spend my time looking after her.”

Bremen pursed his thin lips. “She doesn’t seem to think you will have to. She claims to have use of magic.”

Risca snorted this time. “She is an apprentice. She has been at Paranor for less than three seasons. How could she know anything?”

Bremen glanced at Kinson and saw that the Borderman had figured it out. “Not likely, is it?” he said to Risca. “Well, give me your vote. Does she come with us or not?”

“No,” said Risca at once.

Kinson shrugged and shook his head in agreement.

“Tay?” Bremen asked the Elf.

Tay Trefenwyd sighed reluctantly. “No.”

Bremen took a long moment to consider their response, then nodded. “Well, even though you vote against her, I think she should come.” They stared at him. His weathered face creased with a sudden smile. “You should see yourselves! All right then, let me explain. For one thing, there is something intriguing about her request that I failed to mention. She wishes to study with me, to learn about the magic. She is willing to accept almost any conditions in order to do so. She is quite desperate about it. She did not beg or plead, but the desperation is mirrored in her eyes.”

“Bremen...” Risca began.

“For another,” the Druid continued, motioning the Dwarf into silence, “she claims to have innate magic. I think that perhaps she is telling the truth. If so, we might do well to discover its nature and put it to good use. After all, there are only the four of us otherwise.”

“We are not so desperate that...” Risca began again.

“Oh, yes, we are, Risca,” Bremen cut him short. “We most certainly are. Four against the Warlock Lord, his winged hunters, his netherworld minions, and the entire Troll nation—how much more desperate could we be? No one else at Paranor has offered to help us. Only Mareth. I am not inclined to turn down anyone out of hand at this point.”

“You said earlier that she keeps secrets from you,” Kinson pointed out. “That hardly inspires the trust you seek.”

“We all keep secrets, Kinson,” Bremen chided gently. “There is nothing strange in that. Mareth barely knows me. Why should she confide everything in our first conversation? She is being careful, nothing more.”

“I don’t like it,” Risca declared sullenly. He leaned the heavy cudgel against his massive thigh. “She may have magic at her disposal and she may even have the talent to use it. But that doesn’t change the fact that we know almost nothing about her. In particular, we don’t know if we can depend on her. I don’t like taking that kind of chance with my life, Bremen.”

“Well, I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt,” Tay countered cheerfully. “We will have time to make up our minds about her before there is need to test her courage. There are things to be said in her favor already. We know she was chosen to apprentice with the Druids—that alone speaks highly of her. And she is a Healer, Risca. We might have need of her skills.”

“Let her come,” Kinson agreed grudgingly. “Bremen has already made his mind up anyway.”

Risca frowned darkly. His big shoulders squared. “Well, he may have made up his mind, but he hasn’t necessarily made up mine.” He rounded on Bremen and stared wordlessly at the old man for a moment. Tay and Kinson waited expectantly. Bremen did not offer anything further. He simply stood there.

In the end, it was Risca who backed down. He simply shook his head, shrugged, and turned away. “You are the leader, Bremen. Bring her along if you like. But don’t expect me to wipe her nose.”

“I will be sure to tell her that,” Bremen advised with a wink to Kinson, and beckoned the young woman over to join them.

They set out shortly afterward, a company of five, with Bremen leading, Risca and Tay Trefenwyd at either shoulder, Kinson a step behind, and Mareth trailing. The sun was up now, cresting the Dragon’s Teeth east to light the heavily forested valley, and the skies were bright and blue and cloudless. The company traveled south, winding along little-used trails and footpaths, across broad, calm streams, and into the scrub-covered foothills that lifted out of the woodlands to the Kennon Pass. By midday they were climbing out of the valley into the pass, and the air had turned sharp and cool. Looking back, they could see the massive walls of Paranor where the Druid’s Keep rested high on its rocky promontory amid the old growth. The sun’s intense light gave the stone a flat, implacable cast amid the wash of trees, a hub at the center of a vast wheel. They glanced back on it, one after the other, lost in their separate thoughts, remembering events past and years gone. Only Mareth showed no interest, her gaze turned deliberately forward, her small face an expressionless mask.

Then they entered the Kennon, its rugged walls rising about them, great slabs of stone split by the slow swing of time’s axe, and Paranor was lost from view.

Only Bremen knew where they were going, and he kept the information to himself until they camped that night above the Mermidon, safely down out of the pass and back within the sheltering forests below. Kinson had asked once when he was alone with the old man and Risca had asked in front of everyone, but Bremen had chosen not to respond. His reasons were his own, and he kept them that way, offering no explanation to his followers.

No one chose to contest his decision.

But that night, after they had built their fire and cooked their food (Kinson’s first hot meal in weeks), Bremen revealed at last their destination.

“I will tell you now where we are going,” he advised quietly.

“We are traveling to the Hadeshorn.”

Chapter Five

They were seated about the small fire, their dinner finished, their hands busy with other tasks. Risca worked to sharpen the blade of his broadsword. Tay sipped from an aleskin and sketched pictures in the dust. Kinson worked a fresh length of leather stitching through one boot where the sole was loosening. Mareth sat apart and watched them all with her strange, level gaze that took in everything and gave nothing back.

There was a silence when Bremen finished, four heads lifting as one to stare at him. “I intend to speak with the spirits of the dead in an effort to discover what it is that we must do to protect the Races. I will try to learn something of how we should proceed. I will try to discover our fates.”

Tay Trefenwyd cleared his throat softly. “The Hadeshorn is forbidden to mortals. Even Druids. Its waters are poisonous. One taste and you are dead.” He looked at Bremen thoughtfully, then looked away again. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Bremen nodded. “There is danger in visiting the Hadeshorn. There is greater danger still in calling up the dead. But I have studied the magic that wards the netherworld and its portals into our own, and I have traveled such roads as exist between the two and returned alive.“ He smiled at the Elf. ”I have journeyed far since last we were together, Tay.”

Risca grunted. “I’m not sure I want to know my fate.”

“Nor I,” Kinson echoed.

“I will ask for whatever they will give me,” Bremen advised.

“They will decide what we should know.”

“You believe that the spirits will speak words that you can understand?” Risca shook his head. “I didn’t think it worked that way.”

“It doesn’t,” Bremen acknowledged. He eased himself closer to the fire and held out his hands to capture its warmth. The night was cool, even below the mountains. “The dead, if they appear, offer visions, and the visions speak for them. The dead have no voices. Not from the netherworld. Not unless...”

He seemed to think better of what he was about to say and brushed the matter aside with an impatient wave. “The fact remains that the visions will give voice to what the spirits would tell us—if they choose to speak at all. Sometimes, they do not even appear. But we must go to them and ask their help.”

“You have done this before,” said Mareth suddenly, making it a statement of fact.

“Yes,” the old man admitted.

Yes, thought Kinson Ravenlock, remembering. For he had been there on the last occasion, a terrifying night of thunder and lightning, of rolling black clouds and torrents of rain, of steam hissing off the surface of the lake, and of voices calling out from the subterranean chambers of death’s mansion. He had stood there at the rim of the Valley of Shale and watched as Bremen had gone down to the water’s edge and called forth the spirits of the dead into weather that seemed made for their eerie purpose. What visions there were had not been his to see. But Bremen had seen them, and they had not been good. His eyes alone had revealed that much when finally he had climbed back out of the valley at dawn.

“It will be all right,” Bremen assured them, his smile faint and worn within the creases of his shadowed face.

As they prepared for sleep, Kinson went to Mareth and bent down next to her on one knee. “Take this,” he offered, handing her his travel cloak. ”It will help ward off the night’s chill.”

She looked at him with those large, disturbing eyes and shook her head. “You need it as much as I do, Borderman. I ask no special consideration from you.”

Kinson held her gaze without speaking for a moment. “My name is Kinson Ravenlock,” he said quietly.

She nodded. “I know your name.”

“I stand the first watch and do not need the weight or warmth of the cloak while I keep it. No special consideration is being offered.”

She seemed put off. “I must stand watch, too,” she insisted.

“You will. Tomorrow. Two of us each night.” He kept his temper firmly in check. “Now, will you take the cloak?”

She gave him a cool look, then accepted it. “Thank you,” she said, her voice neutral.

He nodded, rose, and walked away, thinking to himself that it would be a while before he offered her anything again.

The night was deeply still and breathtakingly beautiful, the strangely purple heavens dotted thick with stars and a silvered quarter-moon. Vast and depthless, free from clouds and empty of conflicting light, the sky looked to have been swept by a great broom, the stars spread like diamond chips across its velvet surface. Thousands were visible, so many in some places that they seemed to run together like spilled milk. Kinson looked up at them and marveled. Time eased away with the smoothness of glass.

Kinson listened for the familiar sounds of forest life, but it was as if all who dwelled within these woods were as awestruck as he and had no time for ordinary pursuits.

He thought back to when he was a boy living in the borderland wilderness east and north of Varfleet in the shadow of the Dragon’s Teeth. It was not so different for him even then. At night, when his parents and his brothers and sisters were asleep, he would lie awake looking out at the sky, wondering at its size, thinking of all the places it looked down upon that he had never been. Sometimes he would stand before the bedroom window, as if by moving closer he might see more of what waited out there.

He had always known he would go away, even while the others had begun the process of settling into more sedentary lives. They grew, married, had children, and moved into their own homes.

They hunted, trapped, traded, and farmed in the country in which they had been born. But he only drifted, always with one eye on that distant sky, always with a promise to himself that one day he would see all of what lay beneath it.

He was still looking, even now, with more than thirty years of his life behind him. He was still searching for what he hadn’t seen and didn’t know. He thought that would never change. He thought that if one day it did, he would become a different man than he had ever imagined being.

Midnight arrived, and with it Mareth. She appeared unexpectedly from out of the shadows, wrapped in Kinson’s cloak, so lightfooted that anyone else might have missed her approach entirely.

Kinson turned to greet her, surprised because he was expecting Bremen.

“I asked Bremen to give me his turn at watch,” she explained when she reached him. “I did not want to be treated differently.”

He nodded, saying nothing.

She took off the cloak and handed it to him. She seemed small and frail without it. “I thought you should have this back for when you sleep. It’s gotten cold. The fire has died away to nothing, and it might be best to leave it that way.”

He accepted the cloak. “Thank you.”

“Have you seen anything?”

“No.”

“The Skull Bearers will track us, won’t they?”

How much did she know? he wondered. How much, of what they faced? “Perhaps. Did you sleep at all?”

She shook her head. “I could not stop thinking.” Her huge eyes stared off into the dark. “I have been waiting for this for a long time.”

“To come with us on this journey?”

“No.” She looked at him, surprised. “To meet Bremen. To learn from him, if he will teach me.” She turned away quickly, as if she had said too much. “You had better sleep while you can. I will keep watch until morning. Good night.”

He hesitated, but there was nothing left to say. He rose and walked back to where the others were rolled into their cloaks about the ashes of the fire. He lay down with them and closed his eyes, trying hard to make something of Mareth, then trying not to think of her at all.

But he did, and it was a long time before he slept.

They rose before sunrise and walked east through the day until sunset. They passed along the base of the Dragon’s Teeth above the Mermidon, keeping back within the shadow of the mountains. Bremen warned them that they were at risk even there. The Skull Bearers felt sure enough of themselves to come down out of the Northland. The Warlock Lord marched his armies east toward the Jannisson Pass, which meant they probably intended to descend upon the Eastland. If they were bold enough to invade the country of the Dwarves, they certainly would not hesitate to venture into the Borderlands.

So they kept close watch of the skies and the darker valleys and rifts of the mountains where the shadows left the rock cloaked in perpetual night, and they did not take anything for granted as they journeyed on. But the winged hunters did not show themselves this day, and aside from a few travelers glimpsed at a distance in the forests and plains south, they saw no one. They stopped to rest and to eat, but did not pause otherwise, keeping a steady pace through the daylight hours.

By sunset they had reached the foothills leading up into the Valley of Shale and the Hadeshorn. They camped in a draw that faced back toward the plains south and the winding blue ribbon of the Mermidon where it branched east into the Rabb, the river gradually diminishing until it died away into streams and ponds on the barren flats. They cooked vegetables and a rabbit that Tay had killed, and ate their dinner while it was still light, the sun bleeding red and gold into the western horizon. Bremen told them they would go up into the mountains after midnight and wait for the slow hours before sunrise when the spirits of the dead could be summoned.

They kicked out the fire as night descended and rolled into their cloaks to get what sleep they could.

“Do not worry so, Kinson,” Bremen whispered to the Borderman once in passing on seeing his face.

But the advice was wasted. Kinson Ravenlock had been to the Hadeshorn before and knew what to expect.

Sometime after midnight, Bremen took them up into the foothills fronting the Dragon’s Teeth where the Valley of Shale was nestled. They climbed through the rocks on a night so black that they could barely make out the person immediately ahead. Clouds had moved in after sunset, thick and low and threatening, and all signs of moon and stars had disappeared hours ago. Bremen led the way cautiously, concerned for their well-being even though the terrain they passed through was as familiar to him as the back of his hand. He did not speak to the others as they proceeded, keeping his attention focused on the task at hand and the one that lay ahead, intent on avoiding any missteps either now or later. For a meeting with the dead required foresight and caution, a screwing up of courage and a hardening of determination that would permit neither hesitation nor doubt.

Once contact was made, even the smallest distraction could be life-threatening.

It was still several hours before dawn when they reached their destination. They paused on the rim of the valley and stared down into its broad, shallow bowl. Crushed rock littered its sides, black and glistening even in the deep gloom, reflecting back the strange light of the lake. The Hadeshorn sat at the center of the bowl, broad and opaque, its still, flat surface glimmering with some inner radiance, as if the lake’s soul pulsed within its depths. It was still and lifeless within the Valley of Shale, empty of movement, devoid of sound. It had the look and feel of a black hole, an eye looking down into the world of the dead.

“We will wait here,” Bremen advised, seating himself on the flat surface of a low boulder, his cloak wrapped about his thin frame like a shroud.

The others nodded, but stood staring down into the valley for a time, unwilling to turn away just yet. Bremen let them be. They were feeling the weight of the valley’s oppressive silence. Only Kinson had been here before, and even he could not prepare himself for what he must be feeling now. Bremen understood. The Hadeshorn was the promise of what awaited them all. It was a glimpse into the future they could not escape, a frightening dark look into life’s end. It spoke in no recognizable words, but only in whispers and small mutterings. It revealed too little to give insight and just enough to give pause.

The old man had been here twice now, and each time he had come away forever changed. There were truths to be learned and there was wisdom to be gained from a meeting with the dead, but there was a price to be paid as well. You could not brush up against the future and escape unscathed. You could not see into the forbidden and avoid damage to your sight. Bremen remembered the feeling of those previous meetings. He remembered the cold that had worked its way down into his bones and would not leave for weeks afterward. He remembered his pervasive longing for what he had missed in the years gone past that could never be recaptured. He was frightened even now of the possibility that somehow he would stray from the narrow path permitted him in making this forbidden contact and be swallowed up in the void, a creature consigned to a limbo existence between life and death, neither all of one or the other.

But the need to discover what he could of how the Warlock Lord might be destroyed, of the choices and opportunities open to him in his effort to save the Races, and of the secrets of the past and future hidden to the living but revealed to the dead, far outweighed fear and doubt. He was compelled so fiercely by his need that he was forced to act on it even at the risk of his own wellbeing. Yes, there were dangers in making this contact. Yes, he would not emerge from it unharmed. But it did not matter in the scheme of things, for even giving up his life was an acceptable price if it meant putting an end to his implacable enemy.

The others had forced themselves away from the valley’s rim and drifted over to sit with him. He made himself smile reassuringly at them, one by one, beckoning even the recalcitrant Kinson to come close.

“In the hour before dawn, I will go down into the valley,” he told them quietly. “Once there, I will summon the spirits of the dead and ask them to show me something of the future. I will ask them to reveal the secrets that would help us in our efforts to destroy the Warlock Lord. I will ask them to give up any magic that might aid us. I must do this quickly and all within that short span of time before the sun rises. You will wait here for me. You will not come down into the valley, whatever happens. You will not act on what you see, even though it might seem as if you must. Do nothing but wait.”

“Perhaps one of us should go with you,” Risca offered bluntly.

“There is safety in numbers, even with the dead. If you can speak with their spirits, so can we. We are Druids all, save the Borderman.”

“That you are Druids does not matter,” Bremen said at once. “It is too dangerous for you. This is something I must do alone. You will wait here. I want your promise, Risca.”

The Dwarf gave him a long, hard look and then nodded. Bremen turned to the others. Each nodded reluctantly in turn. Mareth’s eyes met his own and held them with secret understanding.

“You are convinced this is necessary?” Kinson pressed softly.

The lines of Bremen’s aged face crinkled slightly deeper with the furrowing of his brow. “If I could think of something else to do, something that would aid us, I would leave this place. I am no fool, Kinson. Nor hero. I know what corning here means. I know it damages me.”

“Then perhaps...”

“But the dead speak to me as the living cannot,” Bremen continued, cutting him short. “We need their wisdom and insight. We need their visions, flawed and bereft of understanding as they sometimes are.” He took a deep breath. “We need to see through their eyes. If I must give up something of myself to gain that insight, then so be it.”

They were silent then, lost in their separate thoughts, mulling over his words and the misgivings they generated. But there was no help for it. He had told them what was necessary, and there was nothing else to say. They would understand better, perhaps, when this matter was done.

So they sat in the darkness and glanced surreptitiously at the shimmering surface of the lake, their faces bathed in the weak light as they listened to the silence and waited for the dawn to draw closer.

And when at last it did, when it was time to go, Bremen rose and faced his companions with a small smile, then went past them wordlessly and down into the Valley of Shale.

Once more, his progress was slow. He had come this way before, but familiarity did not aid where the terrain was so treacherous. The rock underneath was slippery and loose at every point, and the edges were sharp enough to cut. He picked his way carefully, testing each step on the uncertain surface. His boots crunched and ground on the rock, the sound echoing in the deep silence. From west where the clouds massed thickest, thunder rumbled ominously, signaling the approach of a storm. Within the valley, there was no wind, but the smell of rain permeated the dead air. Bremen glanced up as a flicker of lightning splintered the black skies, then repeated its pattern farther north against the backdrop of the mountains. Dawn would bring more than the sunrise this day.

He reached the bottom of the valley and slogged forward at a more rapid pace, his footing steadier on the level ground. Ahead, the Hadeshorn glimmered with silvery incandescence, the light reflecting from somewhere below its flat, still surface. He could smell death here, an unmistakable mustiness, an arid and fetid decay. He was tempted to look back to where the others waited, but knew he must not distract himself even in that small way. He was already running through the ritual he must follow when he reached the lakeshore—the words, the signs, the conjuring acts that would bring the dead to speak with him. He was already hardening himself against their debilitating presence.

All too soon he stood upon the edge of the lake, a frail, small figure in a vast arena of rock and sky, all withered skin and old bones, the strongest part of him his determination, his stubborn will. Behind him, he could hear again the rumble of thunder from the approaching storm. Overhead, the clouds began to roil, stirred to movement by the winds that bore on their back the coming rain. Below, he could feel the earth shiver as the spirits sensed his presence.

He spoke to them softly, calling out his name, his history, his reason for coming to speak with them. He made the signs with his arms and hands, made the gestures that would summon them from the world of the dead to the world of the living. He saw the waters begin to stir in response, and he quickened his pace. He was confident and steady; he knew what would follow. First came the whispers, soft and distant, rising like invisible bubbles from the waters. Then came the cries, long and deep. The cries increased in volume, growing from a few to many, rising in tenor and impatience. The waters of the Hadeshorn hissed with dissatisfaction and need, and began to roil as rapidly as the clouds overhead, stirred by their own coming storm. Bremen gestured to them, bade them respond. The learning he had mastered in his studies with the Elves buttressed and enabled him, a bedrock on which to build the summoning magic. Answer me, he called to them. Open to me.

Spray flew out of the center of the now violent waters, rising in a fountain, collapsing back, rising again. A rumble sounded deep within the earth, a groan of dissatisfaction. Bremen felt the first trace of doubt steal into his heart, and it was with an effort that he forced himself to ignore it. He could feel a vacuum forming around him, spreading out from the lake to encompass the whole of the valley. Only the dead would be allowed within its perimeter—the dead, and the one who had summoned them.

Then the spirits began to rise from the lake: small, white filaments of light given vaguely human form, bodies bathed in a firefly radiance that glimmered against the blackness of the clouded night. The spirits spiraled out of the mist and spray snakelike, lifting from the dark, dead air of their afterlife home to visit briefly the world they had once inhabited. Bremen kept his arms raised in a warding gesture, feeling vulnerable and bereft of power, though he had done the summoning, though he had brought the spirits to life. Cold ran down his brittle limbs in a rush, ice water through his veins. He held himself firm against the fear that raced through him, against the whispers that asked accusingly: Who calls us? Who dares?

Then something huge broke the water’s surface at its exact center, a black-cloaked figure that dwarfed the smaller glowing forms, scattering them with its coming, soaking up their fragile light and leaving them whirling and twisting like leaves in the wind. The cloaked figure rose to stand upon the dark, churning waves of the Hadeshorn, only vaguely substantial, a wraith without flesh or bones, yet of firmer stuff than the smaller creatures it dominated.

Bremen held himself steady as the dark figure advanced. This was whom he had come to see; this was the one he had summoned. Yet he was no longer certain he had done the right thing.

The cloaked form slowed, so close now that it blotted out the sky above and the valley behind. Its hood lifted, and there was no face, no sign of anything within the dark robes.

It spoke, and its voice was a rumble of discontent.

—Do you know me—

Flat, dispassionate, and empty, a question without a question’s inflection, the words hung upon the silence in a lingering echo.

Bremen nodded slowly in response. “I do,” he whispered.

At the rim of the valley, the four he had left behind watched the drama unfold. They saw the old man stand upon the shores of the Hadeshorn and summon the spirits of the dead. They saw the spirits rise amid the roiling of the waters, saw their glowing forms, the movement of their arms and legs, the twisting of their bodies in a macabre dance of momentary freedom. They watched as the huge, black-robed form lifted from their midst, enveloping them in its wake, absorbing their light. They watched the figure advance to stand before Bremen.

But they could hear nothing of what they saw. Within the valley, all was silent. The sounds of the lake and the spirits were closed away. The voices of the Druid and the cloaked figure, if they spoke, were inaudible. They could hear only the wind that rushed past their ears and the beginning patter of raindrops on the crushed stone. The expected storm was breaking, rolling out of the west in a mass of dark clouds, descending on them with sheets of rain. It reached them at the same moment the cloaked figure reached Bremen, and it swallowed everything in an instant’s time.

The lake, the spirits, the cloaked figure, Bremen, the whole of the valley—all were gone in the blink of an eye.

Risca growled in dismay and glanced quickly at the others.

They were cloaked now against the storm, hunched down within their coverings like crones bent with age. “Can you see?” he demanded anxiously.

“Nothing,” Tay Trefenwyd answered at once. “They’re gone.”

For a moment, no one moved, uncertain what they should do.

Kinson peered through the downpour’s haze, trying to distinguish something of the shapes he thought he could just make out. But everything was shadowy and surreal, and there was no chance of making sure from where they stood.

“He may be in trouble,” Risca snapped accusingly.

“He told us to wait,” Kinson forced himself to say, not wanting to be reminded of the old man’s instructions when he feared so for him, but not willing to ignore his promise either.

Rain blew into their faces in sudden gusts, choking them.

“He is all right!” Mareth cried out suddenly, her hand brushing the air before her face.

They stared at her. “You can see them?” Risca demanded.

She nodded, her face lowered into shadow. “Yes.”

But she could not. Kinson was closest to her and saw what the others missed. If she was seeing Bremen, it was not through her eyes. Her eyes, he realized in shock, had turned white.

Within the Valley of Shale, no rain fell, no wind blew, nothing of the storm penetrated. There was for Bremen no sense of anything beyond the lake and the dark figure that stood upon it before him.

—Speak my name—

Bremen took a deep breath, trying to still the trembling of his limbs and the rush of cold that filled his chest. “You are Galaphile that was.”

It was an expected part of the ritual. A spirit summoned could not remain unless its name was spoken by the summoner. Now it could stay long enough to give answers to the questions Bremen would ask—if it chose to answer at all.

The shade stirred, suddenly restless.

—What would you know of me—

Bremen did not hesitate. “I would know whatever you would tell me of the rebel Druid Brona, of he who has become the Warlock Lord.” His voice was shaking as badly as his hands. “I would know how to destroy him. I would know what is to come.” His voice died away in a dry rattle.

The Hadeshorn hissed and spit as if in response to his words, and the moans and cries of the dead rose out of the night in a strident cacophony. Bremen felt the cold stir anew in his chest, a snake coiling as it prepared to strike. He felt the whole of his years press down upon him. He felt the weakness of his body betray the strength of his determination.

—You would destroy him at any cost—

“Yes.”

—You would pay any price to do so—

Bremen felt the snake within spring deep into his heart. “Yes,” he whispered in despair.

The spirit of Galaphile spread its arms as if to enfold the old man, as if to shelter and protect him.

—Watch—

Visions began to appear against the black spread of its cloaked form, taking shape within the shroud of its body. One by one, they materialized out of the darkness, vague and insubstantial, shimmering like the waters of the Hadeshorn with the coming of the spirits. Bremen watched the images parade before him, and he was drawn to them as to light in darkness.

There were four.

In the first, he stood within the ancient fortress of Paranor. All around him there was death. No one lived within the Keep, all slain by treachery, all destroyed by wicked stealth. Blackness cloaked the castle of the Druids, and blackness stirred within its shadows in the form of assassins waiting, a deadly force. But beyond that blackness shone with gleaming certainty the bright, shimmering medallion of the High Druids, awaiting his coming, needful of his touch, an image of a hand raised aloft with a burning torch—the cherished Eilt Druin.

The vision vanished, and he soared now across the vast expanse of the Westland. He looked down, amazed, unable to account for his flight. At first he could not determine where he was. Then he recognized the lush valley of the Sarandanon and beyond, the blue expanse of the Innisbore. Clouds obscured his vision momentarily, changing everything. Then he saw mountains—the Kensrowe or the Breakline? Within their mass were twin peaks, fingers of a hand split outward from each other in a V shape. Between them a pass led to a vast cluster of fingers, all jammed together, crushed into a single mass. Within the fingers was a fortress, hidden away, ancient beyond imagining, a place come out of the time of faerie. Bremen swooped down into its blackness and found death waiting, though he could not spy out its face. And there, within its coils, lay the Black Elfstone.

This vision vanished, too, and now he stood upon a battlefield.

The dead and wounded lay all about, men from all the Races and things from no race known to man. Blood streaked the earth, and the cries of the combatants and the clash of their weapons rang out in the fading gray light of a late afternoon sky. Before him stood a man, his face turned away. He was tall and blond. He was an Elf.

He carried in his right hand a gleaming sword. Several yards farther away was the Warlock Lord, black-robed and terrible, an indomitable presence that challenged all. He seemed to wait on the tall man, unhurried, confident, defiant. The tall man advanced, raising high the sword, and beneath the gloved hand on the weapon’s handle was the insignia of the Eilt Druin.

One last vision appeared. It was dark and clouded and filled with sounds of sorrow and despair. Bremen stood once more in the Valley of Shale before the waters of the Hadeshorn. He faced anew the shade of Galaphile, watching as the smaller, brighter spirits swirled about it like smoke. At his side was a boy, tall and lean and dark, barely fifteen, so solemn he might have been in mourning. The boy turned to Bremen, and the Druid looked into his eyes... his eyes...

The visions faded and were gone. The shade of Galaphile drew itself into a tighter coalescence, masking away the images, stealing away the brief light they had given. Bremen stared, blinking, wondering at what he had witnessed.

“Will these happen?” he whispered to the shade. “Will they come to pass?”

—Some have come to pass already—

“The Druids, Paranor...?”

—Do not ask more—;

“But what can I...?”

The shade gestured, dismissing out of hand the old man’s questions. Bremen caught his breath as bands of iron tightened around his chest. The bands released, and he swallowed down his fear.

Spray flew from the Hadeshorn in a bright geyser, diamonds against the black velvet night.

The shade began to recede.

—Do not forget—

Bremen lifted his hand in a futile effort to slow the other’s departure. “Wait!”

—A price for each—

The old man shook his head in confusion. A price for each? Each what? For whom?

—Remember—

Then the Hadeshorn boiled anew, and the ghost sank slowly back into the churning waters, drawing down with it all of the brighter, smaller spirits that had accompanied it. Down they went in a rush of spray and mist, amid- cries and whimpers from the dead, back to the netherworld from which they had come. Water exploded in a massive column as they disappeared, breaking apart the silence and dead air in a frightening explosion.

Then the storm came flooding in, with wind and rain, with thunder and lightning, hammering into the old man. Bremen went down with the blow, felled in an instant.

Eyes open and staring, he lay senseless at the water’s edge.

Mareth reached him first. The men were larger and stronger, but her footing was surer on the damp, slippery rock, and she fairly flew across its polished surface. She knelt immediately and cradled the old man in her arms. Rain poured down relentlessly, peeking the now smooth, quiet surface of the Hadeshorn, washing down the black, glistening carpet of the valley, turning the dawn light hazy and vague. It soaked through Mareth’s cloak to her skin, chilling her, but she ignored it, her small features twisting in concentration. Her face lifted to the darkened skies and her eyes closed. The other three slowed as they reached her, uncertain what was happening. Her arms tightened about Bremen. Then she shuddered violently and slumped forward, and the men rushed ahead to catch her. Kinson lifted her away from Bremen, while Tay picked up the old man, and in a knot they fought their way back through the downpour and out of the Valley of Shale.

Once clear, they found shelter in a grotto they had passed on their way in. There they laid the girl and the old man on the stone floor and wrapped them in their cloaks. There was no wood for a fire, so they were forced to remain sodden and chilled, waiting out the rain. Kinson checked for heartbeat and pulse and found both strong. After a time, the old man came awake, then almost immediately after, the girl. The three watchers crowded around Bremen to ask what had happened, but the old man shook his head and told them he did not wish to speak just yet. They left him reluctantly and moved away again.

Kinson paused beside Mareth, thinking to ask what she had done to Bremen—for it seemed clear that she had done something—but she glanced up at him and turned away immediately, so he abandoned the attempt.

The day brightened marginally, and the rains moved on. Kinson shared the food he carried with the others. Only Bremen would not eat. The old man seemed to have retreated somewhere deep inside himself—or perhaps he was still somewhere back within that valley—staring at nothing, his seamed, weathered face an expressionless mask. Kinson watched him for a time, searching for some sign of what he was thinking, failing in his effort to do so.

Finally the old man looked up as if just discovering they were there and wondering why, then beckoned them to sit close to him.

When they were settled, he told them of his meeting with the shade of Galaphile and of the four visions he had been shown.

“I could not decide what the visions meant,” he concluded, his voice weary and rough-edged in the silence. “Were they simply prophecies of what is to come, a future already decided? Were they the promise of what might be if certain things were done? Why were these particular visions selected by the shade? What response is expected of me? All these questions, left unanswered.”

“What price are you being asked to pay for your involvement in all of this?” Kinson muttered darkly. “Don’t forget that one.”

Bremen smiled. “I have asked to be involved, Kinson. I have put myself in the position of being protector of the Races and destroyer of the Warlock Lord, and I do not have the right to ask what it will cost me if my efforts succeed.

“Still,” he sighed, “I believe I understand something now of what is required of me. But I will need help from all of you.” He looked at them in turn. “I must ask you to put yourselves in great danger, I’m afraid.”

Risca snorted. “Thank goodness. I was beginning to think nothing at all would come of this adventure. Tell us what we must do.”

“Yes, best to get started with this journey,” Tay agreed, leaning forward eagerly.

Bremen nodded, gratitude reflected in his eyes. “We are agreed that the Warlock Lord must be stopped before he subjugates all of the Races. We know that he has tried and failed once already, but that this time he is stronger and more dangerous. I told you that because of this I believe he will attempt to destroy the Druids at Paranor. The first vision suggests that I was right.” He paused. “I am afraid perhaps that it has already come to pass.”

There was a long silence as the others exchanged wary glances.

“You think the Druids are all dead?” Tay asked softly.

Bremen nodded. “I think it is a possibility. I hope I am wrong. In any event, whether they are dead or not, I must retrieve the Eilt Druin in accordance with the first vision. The visions taken together make it clear that the medallion is the key to forging a weapon that will destroy Brona. A sword, a blade of special power, of magic that the Warlock Lord cannot withstand.”

“What magic?” Kinson asked at once.

“I don’t know yet.” Bremen smiled anew, shaking his head. “I know hardly anything beyond the fact that a weapon is needed and if the vision is to be believed, the weapon must be a sword.”

“And that you must find the man who will wield it,” Tay added.

“A man whose face you were not shown.”

“But the last vision, that dark image of the Hadeshorn and the boy with the strange eyes...” Mareth began worriedly.

“Must wait until its time.” Bremen cut her short, though not harshly. His gaze settled on her face, searching. “Things reveal themselves as they will, Mareth. We cannot rush them. And we cannot allow ourselves to be constrained by our concern for them.”

“So what are you asking us to do?” Tay pressed.

Bremen faced him. “We must separate, Tay. I want you to return to the Elves and ask Courtann Ballindarroch to mount an expedition to search out the Black Elfstone. In some way the Stone is critical to our efforts to destroy Brona. The visions suggest as much. The winged hunters already search for it. They must not be allowed to find it. The Elf King must be persuaded to support us in this. We have the particulars of the vision to help us. Use what it has shown us and recover the Stone before the Warlock Lord.”

He turned to Risca. “I need you to travel to Raybur and the Dwarves at Culhaven. The armies of the Warlock Lord march east, and I believe they will strike there next. The Dwarves must make themselves ready to defend against an attack and must hold until help can be sent. You must use your special skills to see that they do so. Tay will speak with Ballindarroch to ask the Elves to join forces with the Dwarves. If they do so, they will be a match for the Troll army that Brona relies upon.”

He paused. “But mostly we must gain time to forge the weapon that will destroy Brona. Kinson, Mareth, and I will return to Paranor and discover whether the vision of its fall is true. I will seek to gain possession of the Eilt Druin.”

“If he still lives, Athabasca will not give it up,” Risca declared. “You know that.”

“Perhaps,” Bremen replied mildly. “In any case, I must determine how this sword that I was shown is to be forged, what magic it shall possess, what power it needs to be imbued with. I must discover how to make it indestructible. Then I must find its wielder.”

“You must perform miracles, it seems to me,” Tay Trefenwyd mused ironically.

“All of us must do so,” Bremen answered softly.

They looked at each other in the gloomy light, an unspoken understanding taking shape between them. Beyond their shelter, rainwater dripped in steady cadence from the rocky outcroppings.

It was midmorning, and the light had turned silvery as the sun sought to fight its way through the lingering stormclouds.

“If the Druids at Paranor are dead, then we are all that is left,”

Tay said. “Just the five of us.”

Bremen nodded. “Then five must be enough.” He rose, looking out into the gloom. “We had better get started.”

Chapter Six

That same night, west and north of where Bremen confronted the shade of Galaphile, deep within the stone ring of the Dragon’s Teeth, Caerid Lock made his rounds of the watch at Paranor. It was nearing midnight when he crossed an open court on the parapets facing south and was momentarily distracted by a wicked flash of lightning in the distant skies. He paused, watching and listening to the silence.

Clouds banked from horizon to horizon, shutting out moon and stars, cloaking the world in blackness. Lightning flashed a second time, momentarily splintering the night like shattered glass, then vanishing as if it had never been. Thunder rolled in its wake, a long, deep peal that echoed off the mountain peaks. The storm was staying south of Paranor, but the air smelled of rain and the silence was deep and oppressive.

The Captain of the Druid Guard lingered a moment longer, contemplative, then moved on through a tower door and into the Keep. He made these same rounds every night, disdaining sleep, a compulsive man whose work habits never varied. The times of greatest danger, he believed, were just before midnight and just before dawn. These were the times when weariness and sleep dulled the senses and made you careless. If an attack was planned, it would come then. Because he believed that Bremen would not give warning without reason, and because he was cautious by nature, he had determined to keep an especially sharp eye these next few weeks. He had already increased the number of guards on any given watch and begun the laborious process of strengthening the gate locks. He had considered sending night patrols into the surrounding woods as an added precaution, but was worried that they would be too vulnerable beyond the protection of the walls. His guard was large, but it was not an army. He could provide security within, but he could not give battle without.

He descended the tower stairs to the front courtyard and crossed. Half a dozen guards were stationed at the entry, responsible for the gates, portcullis, and watchtowers that fronted the main approach to the castle. They snapped to attention at his approach. He spoke with the officer in charge, confirmed that all was well, and continued on. He recrossed the open court, listening to a new roll of thunder break the deep night silence, glancing south to search for the flash of lightning that had preceded it, realizing as he did that it would already be gone. He was uneasy, but no more so this night than any other, as wary as he was compulsive about his responsibilities. Sometimes he thought he had stayed too long at Paranor. He did his job well; he knew he was still good at it. He was proud of his command; all of the guards presently in service had been selected and trained by him. They were a solid, dependable bunch, and he knew he could take credit for that. But he was not getting any younger, and age brought a dulling of the senses that encouraged complacency. He could hardly afford that. The fall of the Northland and the rumors of the Warlock Lord made these dangerous times. He sensed change in the wind. Something bad was coming to the Four Lands, and it would most certainly sweep up the Druids in its wake. Something bad was coming, and Caerid Lock was worried that he would not recognize its face until it was too late.

He passed through a doorway at the end of the court and walked down a hall that ran to the north wall and the gate that opened there. There were four gates to the Keep, one for each approach.

There were a number of smaller doors as well, but these were constructed of stone and sealed with iron. Most were cleverly hidden.

You could find them if you looked hard enough, but to do that you had to stand right up against the wall where the light was good and the guards on the battlements would see you. Nevertheless, Caerid kept a man at each during the hours between sunset and sunrise, taking nothing for granted. He passed two on his way to the west gate, fifty yards apart along the winding corridor. The guard at each acknowledged him with a sharp salute. Alert and ready, they were saying. Caerid gave a nod of approval both times and passed on.

He frowned though, when out of sight, troubled by their deployment. The man at the first door, a Troll from the Kershalt, was a veteran, but the man at the second, a young Elf, was new. He did not like stationing new men by themselves. He made a mental note to correct that before the next watch.

He was concentrating on the matter as he passed a back stairway leading down from the Druid sleeping quarters and so missed the furtive movement of the three men hiding there.

The three pressed themselves tightly against the stone wall as the Captain of the Druid Guard passed unseeing below them. They remained very still until he was gone, then detached themselves once more and continued down. They were Druids, all of them, each with more than ten years of service to the Council, each with a zealot’s burning conviction that he was destined for greatness.

For they had lived within the Druid order and chafed at its dictates and rules and found them foolish and purposeless and unfulfilling.

Power was necessary if life was to have meaning. A man’s accomplishments meant nothing if they did not result in personal gain.

What purpose did private study serve if it could not be put to practical use? What sense did it make to brush up against all those secrets of science and magic if they could not ever be tested? So they had asked themselves, these three, separately at first, then all together as they came to realize that they shared a common belief.

They were not alone in their dissatisfaction, of course. Others believed as they did. But none so fervently—none so that, like these three, they would allow themselves to become subverted.

There was no hope for them. The Warlock Lord had been looking for them for a long time, planning his revenge on the Druids. He found them out eventually and made them his own. It had taken time, but bit by bit he had won them over, just as he had won over those who had followed him from the Keep three hundred and fifty years earlier. Such men were always there, waiting to be claimed, waiting to be used. Brona had been sly in his approach, not revealing himself to them in the beginning, letting them hear his voice as if it were their own, exposing them to the possibilities, to the scent of power, to the lure of magic. He let them chain themselves to him with their own hands, let them forge locks of expectation and greed, let them make themselves slaves by growing addicted to false dreams and cravings. In the end, they would have begged him to take them, even after they had discovered who he was and what price they must pay.

Now they crept through Paranor’s corridors with dark intent, committed to a course of action that would doom them forever.

They stole in silence from the stairwell and along the corridor to the doorway at which the young Elf stood watch. They clung to the shadows where the torchlight did not reach, using small conjurings of magic given them by the Master—sweet taste of power—to cloak themselves from the young guard’s eyes.

Then they were upon him, one of them striking a sharp blow to his head to knock him senseless. The other two worked quickly and furiously at the locks that secured the stone door, releasing them one by one, hauling back on the heavy iron grate, lifting off the massive bar from its fittings, and finally, irrevocably, pulling open the door itself so that Paranor lay open to the night and the things that waited without.

The Druids stepped back as the first of those things slouched into the light. It was a Skull Bearer, hunched and massive within its black cloak, claws extended before it. All sharp edges and flat planes, all hardness and bulk, it filled the corridor and seemed to suck away the very air. Red eyes burned into the three who cowered before it, and it shoved its way past them disdainfully.

Leathery wings beat softly. With a hiss of satisfaction, it seized the young Elven guard, ripped out his throat, and cast him aside. The Druids flinched as the rending sprayed them with the victim’s blood.

The Skull Bearer beckoned to the darkness without, and other creatures poured through the doorway, things of tooth and nail, twisted and gnarled and bristling with dark tufts of hair, armed and ready, quick-eyed and furtive in the silence. Some were vaguely recognizable; perhaps they had once been Trolls. Some were beasts of the netherworld and looked in no way human. All had been waiting since just after sunset in a dark alcove in the shelter of the outer walls where they could not be seen from the parapets.

There they had hidden, knowing these three pitiful beings who cowered before them had been claimed by the Master and would gain them access to the Keep.

Now they were inside and eager to begin the bloodletting that had been promised them.

The Skull Bearer sent one back out into the night to summon those still within the forest. There were several hundred, waiting for the signal to advance. They would be seen from the walls as they emerged from the trees, but the alarm would come too late.

By the time Paranor’s defenders could reach them, they would be inside the Keep.

The Skull Bearer turned and started down the hall. It did not acknowledge the three Druids. They were less than nothing to it.

It left them behind, discards, leavings. It was up to the Master to decide what would become of them. All that mattered to the winged hunter was the killing that lay ahead.

The attackers divided into small groups as they went. Some crept up the stairway to the Druid sleeping chambers. Some turned down a secondary corridor that led deep into the Keep. Most continued with the Skull Bearer along the passageway that led to the main gates.

Soon, the screams began.

Caerid Lock came racing back across the courtyard from the north gate when the alarm was finally given. The screams came first, then the sound of a battle horn. The Captain of the Druid Guard knew everything in an instant. Bremen’s prophecy had come true. The Warlock Lord was inside the gates of Paranor. The certainty of it chilled him to the bone. He called his men to him as he ran, thinking there might still be time. They charged into the Keep and down the corridor that led to the door the traitor Druids had breached. As they rounded a turn, they found the passageway ahead packed with black, hunched forms that squirmed through the opening out of the night. Too many to engage, Caerid realized at once. He took his men back quickly, and the beasts were quick to pursue. The guards abandoned the lower level and went up the stairs to the next, closing doors and dropping gates behind them, trying to seal their attackers off. It was a desperate gamble, but it was all that Caerid Lock could think to do.

On the next floor, they were able to close off the lesser entrances and move to the main stairs. By then, they were fifty strong—but still not enough. Caerid sent men to wake the Druids, to beg their assistance. Some among the elders knew magic, and they would need whatever power they could call upon if they were to survive. His mind raced as he rallied his men. This was no forced entry. This was a betrayal from within. He would find those responsible later, he swore. He would deal with them personally.

At the top of the main stairs, the Druid Guard made its stand.

Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, and one or two Gnomes, they stood shoulder to shoulder, ordered and ready, united in their determination. Caerid Lock stood foremost in the center of their ranks, sword drawn. He did not try to fool himself; this was a holding action at best and doomed eventually to fail. Already he was considering his options when they were defeated. There was nothing he could do about the outer walls; they were lost already. The inner walls and the Keep were theirs for the moment, the entries sealed off, his men rallied in their defense. But these efforts would only slow a determined attacker. There were too many ways into and over and under the inner wall for the Druid Guard to hold for very long. Sooner or later their attacker would break through from behind. When that happened, they would have to flee for their lives.

An attack was mounted from below under the direction of the Skull Bearer, and crooked-limb monsters ascended the stairs in a knot of teeth and claws and weapons. Caerid led his guards in a counterattack, and the rush was repulsed. The monsters came again, and again the Druid Guard threw them back. But by now half of the defenders were either dead or injured, and no more had appeared to replace them.

Caerid Lock looked around in despair. Where were the Druids?

Why weren’t they responding to the alarm?

The monsters attacked a third time, a bristling mass of thrashing bodies and windmilling limbs, shrieks and cries rising out of gaping throats. The Druid Guard counterattacked once more, cutting into the monsters, beating them back down the stairway, leaving half their number sprawled lifeless on the blood-slicked steps. In desperation Caerid dispatched another man to summon help from wherever he could find it. He grabbed the man by his tunic as he was about to leave and pulled him close. “Find the Druids and tell them to flee while there is still time!” he whispered so that no other might hear. “Tell them Paranor is lost! Go quick, tell them! Then flee yourself!”

The messenger’s face drained of blood, and he sprinted away wordlessly.

Another assault massed in the shadows below, a congealing of dark forms and guttural cries. Then, from somewhere higher up within the Keep, where the Druids slept, a piercing scream rose.

Caerid felt his heart sink. It’s finished, he thought, not frightened or sad, but simply disgusted.

Seconds later, the creatures of the Warlock Lord surged up the stairway once more. Caerid Lock and his failing command braced to meet them, weapons raised.

But this time there were too many.

Kahle Rese was asleep in the Druid library when the sounds of the attack woke him. He had been working late, cataloging reports he had compiled during the past five years on weather patterns and their effects on farm crops. Eventually he had fallen asleep at his desk. He came awake with a start, jolted by the cries of wounded men, the clash of weapons, and the thudding of booted feet. He lifted his graying head and looked about uncertainly, then rose, took a moment to steady himself, and walked to the door.

He peered out guardedly. The cries were louder now, more terrible in their urgency and pain. Men rushed past his door, members of the Druid Guard. The Keep was under attack, he realized.

Bremen’s warning had fallen on deaf ears, and now the price of their refusal to heed was to be exacted. He was surprised at how certain he was of what was happening and how it would end.

Already he knew he was not going to live out the night.

Still he hesitated, unwilling even at this point to accept what he knew. The hall was empty now, the sounds of battle centered somewhere below. He thought to go out for a better look at things, but even as he was contemplating the idea, a shadowy presence emerged from the back stairway. He pulled his head inside quickly and peered out through his barely cracked door.

Black, misshapen creatures lurched into view, things that were unrecognizable, monsters from his worst nightmare. He caught his breath and held it. Room by room, they were working their way down the corridor to where he waited.

He closed the library door softly and locked it. For a moment he just stood there, unable to move. A rush of images recalled themselves, memories of his early days as a Druid in training, of his subsequent tenure as a Druid Scribe, of his ceaseless efforts to collect and preserve the writings of the old world and of faerie. So much had happened, but in so short a time. He shook his head in wonder. How had it all gone by so quickly?

There were screams close at hand now, freshly raised, come from just beyond his door, in the hall where the monsters prowled.

Time was running out.

He moved quickly to his desk and took out the leather pouch that Bremen had given him. Perhaps he should have gone with his old friend. Perhaps he should have saved himself while he had the chance. But who would have protected the Druid Histories if he had done so? Who else could Bremen have relied upon? Besides, this was where he belonged. He knew so little of the world beyond anymore; it had been too long since he had gone out into it. He was of no use to anyone beyond these walls. Here, at least, he might still serve a purpose.

He walked to the bookcase that doubled as a hidden doorway to the room that concealed the Druid Histories and triggered its release. He entered and looked around. The room was filled with huge, leather-bound books. Row after row, they sat in numbered, ordered sequence, reservoirs of knowledge, of all the lore the Druids had gathered since the time of the First Council from the ages of faerie, Man, and the Great Wars. Each page of each book was crammed with information gained and recorded, some of it understood, some of it a mystery still, all that remained of science and magic past and present. Much of what was written in these books had been done so in Kahle’s own hand, the words painstakingly inscribed, line by line, for more than forty years. Their recordings were the old man’s special pride, the summation of his life’s work, the accomplishment he favored most.

He crossed to the nearest bank of shelves, took a deep breath, and opened the drawstrings to Bremen’s leather pouch. He mistrusted all magic, but there was no other choice. Besides, Bremen would never mislead him. What mattered to both was the preservation of the Histories. They must survive him, as they were intended to. They must survive them all.

He took a generous handful of the glittering, silver dust he found inside the pouch and threw it across one section of the books. Instantly, the entire wall on which the books were housed began to shimmer, taking on the look of a mirage in deep summer heat. Kahle hesitated, then threw more of the dust across the liquid curtain. The shelves and books disappeared. He moved on quickly then, using handfuls of the dust on each set of shelves, each section of books, watching them shimmer and fade away.

Moments later, the Druid Histories had vanished completely.

All that remained was a room with four blank walls and a long reading table at its center.

Kahle Rese nodded in satisfaction. The Histories were safe now. Even if the room was discovered, its contents would remain concealed. It was as much as he could hope for.

He walked back through the door, suddenly weary. There was a scraping at the library door as unwieldy claws tried to fasten on the handle and turn it. Kahle turned and carefully closed the bookcase door. He placed the nearly empty leather pouch into the pocket of his robe, walked to his desk, and stood there. He had no weapons.

He had no place to run. There was nothing to do but wait.

Heavy bodies threw themselves against the door from without, splintering it. A second later it gave way, crashing open against the wall. Three crook-backed beasts slouched into the room, red eyes narrow and hateful as they fixed on him. He faced them without flinching as they approached.

The closest held a short spear. Something in the bearing of the man before him infuriated him. When he was right on top of Kahle Rese, he drove the spear through his chest and killed him instantly.

When it was finished, when all who remained of the guards had been hunted down and slaughtered, the Druids who had survived were herded from their hiding places into the Assembly and made to fall upon their knees, ringed by the monsters who had undone them. Athabasca was found, still alive, and brought to stand before the Skull Bearer. The creature stared at the imposing, white-haired First Druid, then ordered him to bow down and acknowledge him as Master. When Athabasca refused, proud and disdainful even in defeat, the creature seized him by his neck, looked into his frightened eyes, and burned them out with fire from his own.

As Athabasca lay writhing in agony on the stone floor, a sudden hush fell over the Assembly. The hissing and chittering died away.

The scraping of claws and grinding of teeth faded. A silence descended, dark and foreboding, and all eyes were drawn to the hall’s main entry, where the heavy double doors hung shattered and broken from their bindings.

There, within the jagged opening, the shadows seemed to come together, a coalescing of darkness that slowly took shape and grew into a tall, robed figure that did not stand upon the floor as normal men, but hung above it in midair, as light and insubstantial as smoke. A chill permeated the air of the Assembly at its coming, a cold that swept through the chamber and penetrated to the bones of the captured Druids. One by one their captors dropped to their knees, heads bowed, voices a rough murmur.

Master, Master.

The Warlock Lord looked down upon the beaten Druids and was filled with satisfaction. They were his, now. Paranor was his.

Revenge was at hand, after all this time.

He brought his creatures back to their feet, then stretched his cloaked arm toward Athabasca. Unable to help himself, blinded and in pain, the First Druid was jerked upright as if by invisible wires. He hung above the floor, above the other Druids, crying out in terror. The Warlock Lord made a twisting motion, and the First Druid went ominously still. A second twisting motion, and the First Druid began to chant in terrible, croaking agony, “Master, Master, Master.” The Druids huddled about him turned their eyes away in shame and rage. Some wept. The massed creatures of the Warlock Lord hissed with pleasure and approval, lifting their clawed limbs in salute.

Then the Warlock Lord nodded, and the Skull Bearer struck with terrible swiftness, tearing Athabasca’s heart from his chest while he still lived. The First Druid threw back his head and shrieked as his chest exploded, then slumped forward and died.

For several long moments, the Warlock Lord held him suspended over his fellows like a rag doll, the blood draining from his body. He swung him this way and that, back and forth, and finally let him drop to the stone in a sodden mass of ruined flesh and bone.

Then he had all the captured Druids taken from the Assembly, herded like cattle to the deepest regions of Paranor’s cellars, and walled away alive.

As the last of their screams died into silence, he went up through the stairways and corridors of the Keep in search of the Druid Histories. He had destroyed the Druids; now he must destroy their lore. Or take with him what he could use. He went swiftly now, for already there were stirrings from somewhere down within the Keep’s bottomless well that hinted of magic coming awake in response to his presence. In his own domain, he was a match for anything. Here, within the haven of his greatest enemies, he might not be. He found the library and searched it through. He uncovered the bookcase that opened on the hidden chamber beyond, but that chamber was empty. There was magic in use, he sensed, but he could not determine its origin or purpose.

Of the Histories, there was no sign.

From within the depths of the Druid Well, the stirrings grew stronger. Something had been set loose in response to his coming, and it was rising to seek him out. He was disturbed that this should be, that power of this sort should be set at watch to challenge him.

It could not have originated with these pitiful mortals he had so easily subdued. They were no longer able to invoke such power. It must have come instead from the one who had penetrated his domain so recently, the one his creatures had tracked, the Druid Bremen.

He went back down to the Assembly, anxious to be gone now as swiftly as possible, his purpose here accomplished. He had the three who had betrayed Paranor brought before him. He did not speak to them with words, for they were not worthy of this, but let his thoughts speak for him. They cringed and prostrated themselves like sheep, poor foolish creatures who would be more than they were able.

“Master!” they whimpered in placating voices. “Master, we serve only you!”

“Who among the Druids escaped the Keep besides Bremen?

“Only three. Master. A Dwarf, Risca. An Elf, Tay Trefenwyd. A Southland girl, Mareth.”

“Did they go with Bremen?”

“Yes, with Bremen.”

“No others escaped?”

“No, Master. None.”

“They will return. They will hear of Paranor’s fall and want to make certain it is so. You will be waiting. You will finish what I have begun. Then you will be as I am.”

“Yes, Master, yes!”

“Stand.”

They did so, rising hastily, eagerly, broken spirits and minds that were his to command. Yet they lacked the strength to do what was required of them and so must be altered. He reached out to them with his magic, wrapped them about with strands as thin as gossamer and as unyielding as iron, and stole away the last of what was human.

Their shrieks echoed through the empty halls as he relentlessly shaped them into something new. Arms and legs nailed. Heads jerked wildly and eyes bulged.

When he was done, they were no longer recognizable. He left them thus, and with the remainder of his minions trailing obediently after, he stole back into the night, abandoning the castle of the Druids to the dying and the dead.

Chapter Seven

Bremen gave his hand to Risca in parting, and the Dwarf clasped it firmly in his own. They stood just outside the grotto in which they had taken shelter upon leaving the Hadeshorn and its ghosts. It was nearing midday now, the rain had dwindled to a fine mist, and the skies were beginning to clear west above the dark peaks of the Dragon’s Teeth.

“It seems we no sooner meet up again and it’s off our separate ways,” Risca grumbled. “I don’t know how we manage to stay friends. I don’t know why we bother.”

“We have no choice,” Tay Trefenwyd offered from one side.

“No one else would have anything to do with us.”

“True enough.” The Dwarf smiled in spite of himself. “Well, this should test the friendship, sure enough. Scattered Eastland to Westland and then some, and who knows when we’ll meet again?” He gave Bremen’s hand a hard squeeze. “You watch out for yourself.”

“And you, my good friend,” the old man replied.

“Tay Trefenwyd!” the Dwarf shouted over his shoulder. He was already striding down the trail. “Don’t forget your promise! Pack up the Elves and bring them east! Stand with us against the Warlock Lord! We’ll be counting on you!”

“Goodbye for now, Risca!” Tay called after him.

The Dwarf waved, hitching up his pack on his broad shoulders, his broadsword swinging at his side. “Luck to you. Elf ears. Keep alert! Watch your backside!”

They bantered back and forth good-naturedly, the Elf and the Dwarf, old friends comfortable with each other’s joshing, accustomed to exchanges that teased and chided and masked emotions that lay just beneath the surface of the words. Kinson Ravenlock stood to one side listening to the verbal byplay and wished there were time to know them better. But that would have to wait. Risca had departed, and Tay would leave them at the mouth of the Kennon, when they turned north toward Paranor and the Elf continued west to Arborlon. The Borderman shook his head. How hard this must be for Bremen. It had been two years since he had seen Risca and Tay. Would it be two more before he saw them again?

When Risca had disappeared from view, Bremen led the three remaining members of the little company down a secondary trail to the base of the cliffs and then west along the north bank of the Mermidon, retracing the steps that had brought them there. They walked until well after sunset, camping finally in the lee of a copse of alder on a cove where the Mermidon branched south and west.

The skies had cleared and were brilliant with stars, the light reflecting in a kaleidoscopic sparkle off the placid surface of the water. The company gathered on the riverbank and ate their dinner staring out into the night. No one said much. Tay cautioned Bremen to be wary at Paranor. If the vision he had been shown had come to pass and the castle of the Druids had fallen, there was reason to believe that the Warlock Lord and his minions might yet be in residence. Or if not, the Elf added, he might have left traps to ensnare any Druids who had escaped and were foolish enough to return. He said it lightly, and Bremen responded with a smile.

Kinson noted that neither bothered to dispute the likelihood of Paranor’s destruction. It must have been a bitter realization for both, but neither showed anything of what they were feeling. They made it a point not to dwell on the past. It was the future that mattered now.

To that end, Bremen talked at some length with Tay about his vision of the Black Elfstone, going over the particulars of what he had been shown, what he had sensed, and what he had deduced.

Kinson listened idly, glancing now and again at Mareth, who was doing the same. He wondered what she was thinking, knowing as she did now that the Druids of Paranor were probably gone. He wondered if she realized how dramatically her role as a member of this company had changed. She had said barely a word since coming out of the Valley of Shale, keeping apart during the exchanges between Bremen, Risca, and Tay, watching and listening. Not unlike himself, Kinson thought. For she, too, was an outsider, still looking to find her place, not a Druid like the others, not yet proven, not entirely accepted as an equal. He studied her, trying to gage her toughness, her resilience. She would need both for what lay ahead.

Later, when she was sleeping, Tay sprawled close to her and Bremen at watch, Kinson rolled out of his cloak and walked over to sit with the old man. Bremen said nothing as he came up, looking out into the darkness. Kinson seated himself, crossed his long legs before him, and wrapped his cloak comfortably about his shoulders. The night was warm, more in keeping with the season than of late, and the air was filled with the smell of spring flowers and new leaves and grasses. A breeze blew down out of the mountains, rustling the limbs of the trees, rippling the waters of the river. The two men sat in silence for a time, listening to the night sounds, lost in their separate thoughts.

“You are taking a great risk in returning,” Kinson said finally.

“A necessary risk,” Bremen amended.

“You feel certain Paranor has fallen, don’t you?”

Bremen did not respond for a moment, as still as stone, then nodded slowly.

“It will be very dangerous for you if that is so,” Kinson pressed.

“Brona hunts you already. He probably knows you have been to Paranor. He will expect you to return.”

The old man’s face turned slightly toward his younger companion, creased and browned by weather and sun, etched by a lifetime of struggle and disappointment. “I know all this, Kinson. And you know that I know, so why are we discussing it?”

“So that you will be reminded,” the Borderman declared firmly.

“So that you will be doubly cautious. Visions are fine, but they are tricky as well. I don’t trust them. You shouldn’t either. Not entirely.”

“You refer to the vision of Paranor, I presume?”

Kinson nodded. “The Keep fallen and the Druids destroyed. All clear enough. But the sensation of something waiting, something dangerous—that’s the tricky part of this matter. If it’s accurate, it won’t come in any form you expect.”

Bremen shrugged. “No, I don’t suppose it will. But it doesn’t matter. I have to make certain that Paranor is truly lost—no matter the strength of my own suspicions—and I have to recover the Eilt Druin. The medallion is to be an integral part of the talisman needed to destroy the Warlock Lord. The vision was clear enough on that. A sword, Kinson, that I must shape, that I must forge, that I must imbue with magic that Brona himself cannot withstand. The Eilt Druin is the only part of that process that I have been shown; the medallion’s image was clearly visible on the sword’s handle. It is a place to begin. I must recover the medallion and determine what is needed from there.”

Kinson studied him a moment in silence. “You have already constructed a plan for this, haven’t you?”

“The beginnings of one.” The old man smiled. “You know me too well, my friend.”

“I know you well enough to anticipate you now and then.”

Kinson sighed and looked out across the river. “Not that it helps me in my efforts to persuade you to take better care of yourself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

Wouldn’t you? Kinson thought wearily. But he did not challenge the statement, hoping that perhaps it was at least partly true, that the old man did listen to him about a few things, particularly those that argued for caution. It was funny that Bremen, now in the twilight of his life, was so much more reckless than the younger man. Kinson had spent a lifetime on the border learning that a single misstep was the difference between life and death, that knowing when to act and when to wait kept you safe and whole.

He supposed that Bremen appreciated the distinction, but he didn’t always act as if he did. Bremen was far more apt to challenge fate than Kinson. The magic was the difference, he supposed. He was swifter and stronger than the old man, and his instincts were surer, but Bremen had the magic to sustain him, and the magic had never failed. It gave Kinson some small measure of reassurance that his friend was cloaked in an extra layer of protection. But he wished the measure could be larger.

He unfolded his long legs and stretched them out in front of him, leaning back, bracing himself with his arms. “What happened back there with Mareth?” he asked suddenly. “At the Hadeshorn, when you collapsed and she reached you first?”

“Interesting young woman, Mareth.” The old man’s voice was suddenly soft. He turned to face Kinson once more, a faraway look in his eyes. “Remember how she claimed to have magic? Well, the claim is a valid one. But perhaps it is not the sort of magic I envisioned. I’m still not sure. I do know something of it, though. She is an empath, Kinson. Her healing art is buttressed by this power. She can take another’s pain into herself and lessen it. She can absorb another’s injury and speed its healing. She did that with me at the Hadeshorn. The shock of seeing the visions and being touched by the shades of the dead rendered me unconscious. But she lifted me—I could feel her hands—and brought me awake, strong again, healed.“ He blinked. ”It was very clear. Did you happen to see what effect it had on her?”

Kinson pursed his lips thoughtfully. “She seemed to lose strength momentarily, but it didn’t last long. But her eyes. On the bluff, when you disappeared in the storm while talking with the shade of Galaphile, she said she could see you when the rest of us could not. Her eyes were white.”

“Her magic seems quite complex, doesn’t it?”

“Empathic, you said. But not in any small way.”

“No. There is nothing small about Mareth’s magic. It is very powerful. Probably she was born with it and has worked to develop her skills over the years. Certainly with the Stors.” He paused. “I wonder if Athabasca realizes she possesses this skill. I wonder if any of them realize it.”

“She isn’t one to give much away about herself. She doesn’t want anyone to get too close.” Kinson thought for a moment. “But she does seem to admire you. She told me how important it was to her that she come with you on this journey.”

Bremen nodded. “Yes, well, there are secrets yet to be revealed about Mareth, I think. You and I, we shall have to find a way to draw them out into the open.”

Good luck to you on doing that, Kinson wanted to say, but kept the thought to himself. He remembered Mareth’s reticence to accept even the small comfort of his cloak when he had offered it.

It would take an unusual set of circumstances for her to give away anything about herself, he suspected.

But, then, nothing usual lay ahead for any of them, did it?

He sat with Bremen on the banks of the Mermidon, not speaking, not moving, looking out across the water, projecting images from the dark recesses of his mind of what he feared might come to pass.

They rose at sunrise and walked through the day in the shadow of the Dragon’s Teeth, following the Mermidon west The weather turned warmer still, the temperature soaring, the air thickening with moisture and heat. Travel cloaks were discarded and water consumed in increasing quantities. They rested more frequently in the afternoon hours, and it was still light when they reached the Kennon. There Tay Trefenwyd left them to continue on across the grasslands to the forests of Arborlon.

“When you find the Black Elfstone, Tay, do not think to use it,”

Bremen cautioned on parting. “Not for any reason. Not even if you are threatened. Its magic is powerful enough to accomplish anything, but it is dangerous as well. All magic exacts a price for its use. You know that as well as I. The price for use of the Black Elfstone is too high.”

“It might destroy me,” Tay finished, anticipating.

“We are mortal beings, you and I,” Bremen observed quietly.

“We must tread lightly where the use of magic is concerned. Your task is to recover the Elfstone and to bring it to me. We do not seek to use it. We seek only to prevent the Warlock Lord from using it.

Remember that.”

“I will remember, Bremen.”

“Warn Courtann Ballindarroch of the danger we face. Convince him that he must send his army to aid Raybur and the Dwarves. Don’t fail me.”

“It will all be done.” The Druid Elf clasped his hand, released it, and was off with a jaunty wave. “Another memorable reunion, wasn’t it? Watch out for him, Kinson. Take care, Mareth. Good luck to you all.”

He whistled happily, smiling back at them one final time. Then his long stride lengthened, and he disappeared into the trees and rocks and was gone.

Bremen huddled then with Kinson and Mareth to decide whether they should continue on through the pass or wait until morning. It appeared another storm was approaching, but if they waited it out they might lose another two days. Kinson could tell that the old man was anxious to continue, to reach Paranor and discover the truth of what had happened. They were rested and fit, so he urged that they go on. Mareth was quick to give her support.

Bremen smiled his appreciation and beckoned them forward.

They hiked into the pass as the sun dropped steadily toward the horizon and slipped from view. The skies remained clear and the air warm, so travel was comfortable and they made good time. By midnight, they were through the top of the pass and starting down into the valley beyond. The wind had picked up, howling out of the southwest in a steady rush, spinning dirt and gravel off the trail in small funnels, clouding the air with debris. They walked with their heads lowered until they were below the rim of the mountains and the wind had tailed off. Ahead, the black silhouette of the Druid’s Keep was clearly visible against the starlit sky, rising out of the trees, towers and parapets stark and jagged. No lights burned in its windows or from its battlements. No movement or sound disturbed its silence.

They reached the valley floor and were swallowed by the forest.

Moon and stars lit their way through the deep shadows, guiding them on toward the Keep. Massive old growth hemmed them about, rising over them like the pillars of a temple. Glades softened by thick grasses and small streams came and went. The night continued still and sleepy about them, empty of sound and movement save for the wind, which had picked up again, blowing past their faces in small, hard gusts, rustling their cloaks and the branches of the trees like shaken bedding. Bremen led them swiftly, steadily on, the pace belying his age and challenging theirs. Kinson and Mareth exchanged glances. The Druid had tapped into a hidden reservoir of strength. He had turned as hard and unyielding as iron.

It was not yet dawn when they reached Paranor. They slowed as the fortress came into view, materializing through breaks in the trees, lifting toward the starlit heavens, a massive black husk. Still, no light shone. Still, there was no sound or movement from within. Bremen stopped the Borderman and the Healer where they were hidden by the forest shadows. Silent, stone-faced, he scanned the walls and parapets of the Keep. Then, staying within the concealment of the woods, he took them left about the castle perimeter. The wind whipped across the battlements and around the spiraling towers in a mournful howl. Within the trees where they crept, it was a giant’s breath that warned of its owner’s approach. Kinson was sweating freely, his nerves on edge, his breathing harsh in his lungs.

They arrived at the main gates and stopped once more. The gates stood open, the portcullis raised, the entry left black and gaping and vaguely reminiscent of a mouth frozen in a death scream.

There were bodies by the shattered doors, twisted and lifeless.

Bremen hunched forward in concentration, staring at the Keep, but not really seeing it, looking somewhere beyond. His gray hair whipped about his head, as wispy as corn silk. His mouth moved. Kinson reached beneath his cloak and pulled forth his short sword. Mareth’s eyes were wide and dark, and her small body rigid, poised to bolt.

Then Bremen took them forward. They crossed the open space separating the forest from the Keep, walking slowly, steadily, not bothering to hurry or conceal their approach. Kinson’s eyes flicked left and right apprehensively, but Bremen did not seem concerned. They reached the gates and the dead men, and stooped to identify them. Druid Guards, most of them looking as if they had been torn apart by animals. Blood stained the ground beneath them, soaked from their bodies. Their weapons were drawn; many were shattered. They looked to have fought hard.

Bremen moved into the shadow of the wall, past the sagging gates and raised portcullis, and there he found Caerid Lock. The Captain of the Druid Guard was slumped against the watchtower door, blood dried and crusted on his face, his body pierced and slashed in a dozen places. He was still alive. His eyes flickered open, and his mouth moved. Hurriedly, Bremen bent to listen.

Kinson could hear nothing, the wind obscuring the words.

The old man looked up. “Mareth,” he called softly.

She came at once, bending over Caerid Lock. She did not need to be told what was required. Her hands ran quickly over the wounded man’s body, searching for ways to help. But she was too late. Not even an empath could save Caerid now.

Bremen pulled Kinson down so that the two were huddled close, their faces almost touching. About them, the wind continued to howl softly as it twisted and turned about the walls.

“Caerid said Paranor was betrayed from within, at night, while most slept. Three Druids were responsible. Everyone was killed but them. The Warlock Lord left them to deal with us. They are inside, somewhere. Caerid dragged himself here, but could go no further.”

“You are not going in there?” Kinson asked hurriedly.

“I must. I must secure the Eilt Druin.” The old man’s seamed face was set and his eyes were hard and angry. “You and Mareth will wait for me here.”

Kinson shook his head stubbornly. Dust and grit blew into his eyes as the wind whipped through the dark opening. “This is foolish, Bremen! You will need our help!”

“If something happens to me, I will need you to get word to the others!” Bremen refused to yield. “Do as I say, Kinson!”

Then he was on his feet and moving away, a ragged bundle of stick limbs and blowing robes, hastening from the gates and across the courtyard to the inner wall. In seconds, he had passed through a doorway and was lost from view.

Kinson stared after him in frustration. “Shades!” he muttered, furious at his own indecision.

He glanced over at Mareth. The young woman was closing Caerid Lock’s eyes. The Captain of the Druid Guard was dead.

It was a miracle, Kinson thought, that he had lasted this long. Any of his wounds would have finished a normal man on the spot. That he had lived until now was a testament to his toughness and determination.

Mareth was on her feet, looking down at him. “Come on,” she said. “We’re going after him.”

Kinson stood up quickly. “But he said...”

“I know what he said. But if anything happens to Bremen, what difference do you think it will make whether we get word to the others or not?”

His lips compressed in a tight line. “What difference, indeed?”

Together they hurried across the empty, windswept courtyard toward the Keep.

Within Paranor, Bremen moved swiftly down the empty halls, as silent as a cloud crossing the sky. He explored as he went, attuned to the tastes and smells and sounds of the Keep. He reached out with his senses and instincts to uncover the danger of which Caerid Lock had warned, wary of its presence and intent.

But he could not find it. Either it was very well concealed or it had departed.

Be cautious, he urged himself. Be alert.

Everyone within the Keep was dead—of that much he was certain. All of the Druids, all of their guards, all who had lived and worked and studied here for so many years, all those he had left behind just four days ago. The shock of it was like a blow to the stomach; it took the wind and the strength from him and left him numb with disbelief. All dead. He had known it could happen, had believed it possible, had even seen the vision of it. But the reality was much worse. Bodies lay strewn everywhere, twisted in death.

Some had died by the sword. Some had been torn apart. Some, he sensed, had been taken to the lower depths of the Keep and killed there. But none had survived. No heartbeat reached his ears. No voice called. No living thing stirred. Paranor was a charnel house.

It was a tomb.

He worked his way through the echoing corridors to the Assembly and there found Athabasca, his face frozen with the moment of his death, his corpse a sad and ruined thing. Bremen stooped to look for the Eilt Druin and did not find it. He straightened and paused. He felt only sadness for the High Druid, only regret. Seeing him thus, seeing all of them dead and the castle of the Druids empty, made him wish he had tried harder in his efforts to persuade them of the danger. Guilt washed through him. He could not help himself. He was in some way to blame for this. His was the knowledge and the power, and he had failed to use either in a convincing way. This was the result. He drew Athabasca’s robes across his face and walked away.

He climbed then to the library, keeping his back to the wall as he moved through the castle’s dead shell, listening for the betraying sounds of danger, cautious and alert. It was here, the danger of which Caerid Lock and the vision both had warned.

The traitor Druids, in some form, waiting. So be it. But the Warlock Lord was gone, and his creatures with him. The cauldron of magic that had been stirred with their coming— Bremen’s trip wire set in place within the Druid Well—had bubbled and boiled just enough to cause them to fear and to persuade them not to linger. Listening, he could hear it now, a faint hiss, the magic sunk back within the pit, the magic that gave life to the Keep, that gave power to most of the Druid spells. Vast and mercurial, it gave back only a portion of what it promised, and that so small it paled in the face of Brona’s monstrous power. Still, it had served its purpose this once, driving the rebel Druid from the Keep.

Bremen sighed. There was no pleasure to be taken from so small a victory. Brona had his revenge, and that was what mattered. He had destroyed those who had opposed him, who would have challenged him, and he had savaged their safehold. Now there was no one to stop him save one old man and a handful of followers.

Perhaps. Perhaps.

He reached the library and found Kahle Rese. He cried silently on seeing him, unable to help himself. He covered his old friend as well, unable to look upon him more than once, and went through the hidden doorway to the room in which the Druid Histories were concealed. The room was empty of everything but the worktable and chairs, and the dust that Bremen had given Kahle as a last resort lay scattered on the floor, dull now and lifeless, evidence that it had been put to the use for which it was intended. Bremen tried momentarily to see Kahle in those last few moments of his life. He could not manage it. It was enough to know that the Druid Histories were safe. That would have to serve as his old friend’s epitaph.

He heard something then, a sound that came from somewhere far below, a sound so soft that he detected it with his instincts rather than his ears. He hastened from the room, sensing that whatever time had been allotted him in Paranor was running out. He must find the Eilt Druin now. Locating the medallion was all that was left. Athabasca had not been wearing it. It might have been taken from his body, but Bremen did not think so. The attack had come at night, Caerid Lock had said, and no one had been ready.

Athabasca would have been roused from his bed. He would not have taken time to put on the medallion. It was probably in his chambers.

Bremen climbed the stairs to the High Druid’s office, a soundless, voiceless ghost among the dead. He felt as if he had no weight, no substance, no presence. He was inconsequential, a madman playing with fire and having no cure for the burns it was sure to inflict. He felt tired, lost to his fears for the world. It was such a hopeless task he had set himself—creating a magic, forging a talisman to contain it, finding a champion to wield it.

What chance did he have to accomplish all this? What hope?

He found the door to Athabasca’s rooms open and entered cautiously. He scanned the shelves and desktop without result. He opened doors to cabinets and files and found nothing. Fearful now that he had come too late even for the medallion, he hastened into the High Druid’s bedchamber.

There, sprawled on a night table, forgotten in the rush that had carried Athabasca from his sleep to his death, was the Eilt Druin.

Bremen picked it up and examined it, making sure it was real.

The burnished metal glimmered back at him. He ran his fingers over the raised surface of hand and burning torch. Then he tucked it quickly into his robes and hurried from the room.

He went down the corridors and stairs once more, still listening and watching, still wary. He had gotten this far without encountering anything. Perhaps he could slip past whatever had been set at watch. Cloud silent, he eased through the gloom and the dead, past shadows pooling in narrow comers and bodies flung through doorways and across stone floors. He caught sight suddenly of a faint brightening in the sky east, visible through tall, latticed glass windows. Night was fading, the dawn at hand. Bremen breathed deeply of the musty, stale air, and longed for the smell and taste of the green forest beyond.

He reached the main stairway and started down. He was midway between floors when he caught sight of movement on the broad landing below. He slowed, stopped, and waited. The movement detached itself from the shadows, a new kind of shadow, a different form. The thing that showed itself was human, but only vaguely. Arms, legs, torso, and head, all were covered in thick black hair, bristling and stiff, all crooked and bent like bramble wood, elongated and misshapen. There were claws and teeth that glimmered like the jagged ends of old bones, and eyes that flickered with bits of crimson and green. The thing whispered to him, called out to him, begged and wheedled with a wretchedness that was palpable.

Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.

The old man glanced quickly to the upper landing, also visible within the wide, open stairwell, and another of the creatures appeared, a mirror image of the first, creeping from the gloom.

Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.

Both came onto the stairs, one ascending, one descending. They had trapped him between them. There were no doors leading off, there was no way to go but up or down, past one or the other. They had waited him out, he realized. They had let him go about his business, let him collect what he chose, then closed in on him. The Warlock Lord had planned it thus, wanting to know what was important enough to bring him back, what treasure, what bit of magic could be precious enough to salvage. Find out, the Warlock Lord had ordered, then steal it from his lifeless body and bring it to me.

Bremen looked from one to the other. Druids once, these creatures, now altered into unspeakable things. Ravers, berserkers, beings stripped of their humanity and made over so that they might serve one last purpose. It was difficult to feel sorrow for them. They had been human enough when they had betrayed the Keep and its occupants. They had been free enough to choose then.

But there were supposed to be three, he realized suddenly.

Where was the third?

Warned by a sixth sense, by instincts honed to a fine edge, he looked up just as it dropped from its hiding place in a stone niche in the stairwell wall. He flung himself aside, and it thudded to the stairs with a snapping of broken bones. Still, it didn’t quit. It rose in a flurry of teeth and claws, shrieking and spitting, and launched itself at him. Bremen acted instinctively, throwing up the Druid fire that served as his defense in a blue curtain that engulfed the creature. Even then, it did not stop. It came on, burning, the black hair of its body flaring like a torch, the skin beneath peeling and melting away. Bremen struck at it again, frightened now, amazed that it could still stand. The thing careered into him, and he twisted away, falling back upon the stairs, kicking out in desperation.

Then, at last, the creature’s strength failed. It lost its footing and tumbled away, rolling to the edge of the stairwell and dropping from view, a bright flare in the inky black.

Bremen lurched to his feet, singed by flames and raked by the creature’s claws. The other two attackers continued their approach with slow, mincing steps, like cats at play. Bremen tried to call up his magic in defense, but he had exhausted himself defending against the first attack. Startled by its ferocity, he had used too much of his strength. Now he had almost nothing left.

The creatures seemed to know this. They eased smoothly toward him, mewling anxiously.

Bremen put his back to the stairwell wall and watched them come.

As he did so, Kinson and Mareth crept silently through the corridors of the Keep, searching for him. The dead lay everywhere, but there was no sign of the old man. Though they watched and listened for his passing, they could detect nothing. Kinson was growing worried. If there was something evil hidden within the Keep, waiting for intruders, it might find them first. It might find them before they found Bremen, and Bremen would be forced to come to their rescue. Or had the Druid already fallen victim without their hearing? Were they already too late He should never have let Bremen go on alone!

They passed through the bodies of the Druid Guard who had made their last stand at the top of the stairs on the Keep’s second level, and continued up. Still nothing showed itself. The stairs wound upward into the black, endless in number. Mareth was pressed against the wall, trying to get a better look at what lay ahead. Kinson kept glancing behind them, thinking an attack would come from there. His face and hands were slippery with sweat.

Where was Bremen?

Then something stirred on the next landing up, a faint altering of light, a detaching of shadows. Kinson and Mareth froze. An odd whispery wail drifted down to where they stood.

Breeemen, Breeemen, Breeemen.

They glanced at each other, then cautiously eased ahead.

Something dropped onto the stairs above them, a heavy body, too far away yet to see, but close enough to imagine. Blue fire exploded through the darkness. Shrieks rang out, and bodies thudded. Seconds later, a flaming ball hurtled over the edge of the stairs and fell past them, a living thing, if only barely, thrashing in agony as it crashed to the floor below.

Caution forgotten, Mareth and Kinson charged ahead. As they climbed, they caught sight of Bremen higher up on the stairs, trapped between two hideous creatures that were advancing on him from the landings above and below. The old man was bloodied and burned and clearly exhausted. Druid fire flared at his fingertips, but would not ignite. The creatures who stalked him were taking their time.

All three turned at the approach of the Border-man and the girl, startled.

“No! Go back!” Bremen cried on seeing them.

But Mareth raced up the stairs and onto the lower landing with a sudden burst of speed, leaving a surprised Kinson behind. She planted her feet and hunched down within her clothing like a coiled spring. Her hands came up, her arms stretched wide, and her palms turned upward as if to beseech help from the heavens.

Kinson exhaled in dismay and rushed after her. What was she doing? The monster closest to the girl hissed in warning, whirled, and came at her, bounding down the stairs as swift as thought, claws extended. Kinson cried out in anger. He was still too faraway!

Then Mareth simply exploded. There was a huge, booming cough, and the shock wave threw Kinson against the wall. He lost sight of Mareth, Bremen, and the creatures. Fire burst upward from where Mareth had been standing, a blue streak that burned white-hot. It ripped into the closest creature and tore it apart. Then it found the second, where it was closing on Bremen, and bore it away, a leaf upon the wind. The creature shrieked in dismay and was consumed. The fire raced on, burning along the stone walls and stairs, swallowing the air and turning it to smoke.

Kinson shielded his eyes and struggled to his feet. The fire disappeared, gone in an instant. Only the smoke remained, thick clouds of it filling the stairwell. Kinson charged up the steps and found Mareth collapsed on the landing. He lifted her, cradling her limp body. What had happened to her? What had she done? She was as light as a feather, her small features pale and streaked with soot, her short dark hair a damp helmet about her face. Her eyes were half-closed and staring. Through the slits, he could see they had turned white. He bent close. She didn’t seem to be breathing.

He couldn’t find a pulse.

Bremen appeared abruptly before him, materializing out of the haze, disheveled and wild-eyed. “Take her out of here!” he shouted.

“But I don’t think she’s ...” he tried to argue.

“Quick, Kinson!” Bremen cut him short. “Now, if you want to save her, get out of the Keep! Go!”

Kinson turned without a word and hastened down the stairs, Mareth in his arms, Bremen trailing in a ragged swirl of torn robes. Down through the Keep they stumbled, coughing and choking on the smoke, eyes tearing. Then Bremen heard something rumbling in the earth beneath. It was the sound of something waking, something huge and angry, something so vast it was unimaginable.

“Run!” Bremen cried once more, needlessly.

Together, the Borderman and the Druid fled through the smoky gloom of dead Paranor toward daylight and life.