Goddess Worldweaver

16
Broken Circles

The Worldfall tumbled from the zenith of all circles, carrying the stuff of creation into the mountainous Nullreach of Nayve. For decades it had pounded this ground, pulverizing the substance of the Fourth Circle in this region into a wasteland of chaos. Nothing could live there, nothing could so much as approach this shimmering vista of violence. The air churned with violent storms, and the ground was shattered and trembling, prone to quakes that dropped away great sections of terrain, sucking it right into the vortex of the great storm.

Yet for all that destruction, the storm had remained in this one location since its creation. The scope of the plunging debris, instead of expanding outward, remained localized, limited to that section of terrain that, in fact, no longer existed as anything resembling solid ground. Those bordering plains and hills that, one year, vanished into the chaotic tangle would re-form in another season; hill might be plain and flat might roll into lofty elevation, but the terrain would inevitably begin to re-form. It survived this perilous existence for an unknown time, before once again vanishing into the maw of destruction.

Across the world of Nayve, a far less violent phenomenon had been observed in the five decades since the discovery of the Worldfall. There, in an idyllic region of farmland and lakes, a land of gnomes and elves called Winecker, the ground had been subject to a series of upheavals. Hills had risen where gentle pastures once sprawled, and periodically, storms of wind would sweep the land, winds that swept away from Nayve, forming a vortex of upward-rising air. The scholarly druid Socrates had determined this to be a reaction to the Worldfall, an upward counter to that powerful and relentless downward force.

Despite the Worldfall’s lethal power, many creatures had survived the plunge down the cataract of chaos, including the thousands of harpies who had swarmed into Nayve five decades ago and the massive dragon who had been sucked into the storm called the Hillswallower. That maelstrom had similarly wrought great destruction in the Sixth Circle as well, the overworld that was called Arcati by those who dwelled there. A whole province in the cloud world had vanished into the Hillswallower, leaving a region of chaos and destruction where once cumulous elevations had risen gently into the oversky.

So extensive was the storm, so vast its plunge, that it actually carried the stuff of the cosmos downward past the sun-for that orb was below Arcati and above Nayve. Rising and falling on a cycle of twenty-four hours, the sun at its loftiest height brought daylight to the Sixth Circle as the Fourth was plunged into night. Then it would descend, and the Lighten Hour would come to Nayve as the overworld was cloaked in cooling darkness.

The sun was oriented over the Center of Everything, the temple of the Goddess Worldweaver and her silver loom, the thousand-foot-tall spire of silver rising from her sacred precincts. Three directions marked the points from the Center: the direction of wood; the direction of metal; and the direction that was neither metal nor wood, sometimes called the direction of null. Like the center of a web, the temple stood tall. Here the goddess performed her labors, while the druids studied the Tapestry, practiced their magic, and recorded their stories.

Nayve, the Fourth Circle, was surrounded by the Worldsea, beyond which lay the Second, Third, and Fifth Circles. The Fifth, in the direction of null, was the land of death and the end of all worlds. The First was below, the great city of Axial aligned directly underneath Circle at Center. Together with the Sixth, above, these worlds formed the core of the cosmos, the focus of all the worlds where magic dwelled.

Only the Seventh Circle, the world called Earth, lay beyond the pale of the first six worlds. There were those druids who maintained that Earth, the Seventh Circle, is an imagined place, a dream woven by the goddess on her Tapestry for the edification of her druids. More rational minds discounted this argument, and indeed, since Earth was the birthplace of all humans who live upon Nayve, druids and warriors alike, there was a significant population on Nayve with very vivid memories of their world of origin.

The druids were summoned here by the blessing of the goddess, and each warrior was brought by the explicit act of a druid: the carnal Spell of Summoning, which brings a warrior from the place of his dying to the place of his eternal life. But all of them recalled past lives, lands, and peoples of Earth.

These spells were the final proof: the Seventh Circle was a real place, source of actual creatures, the humans who, increasingly, came to populate Nayve. Thanks to the water discovered by the druid Juliay, the Spell of Summoning could be cast without costing the druid her youth and her future. As a consequence, more and more members of the order had selected warriors from the battlefields of Earth, bringing each to Nayve at the moment of his death.

Still, there were not enough of them, as the ghost warriors teemed to the far horizons and beyond.

Natac saw that the three great columns were marching onto the plains, with the Ringhills, some fifty miles away, as their goal. He sat astride the great dragon as Regillix Avatar flew three miles above the world’s surface. From here they could see the valley of the Swansleep River, the vast plain, and the rugged horizon of the hills rising toward the Center.

Tamarwind’s elves formed the rear guard as the army pulled away from the river, though the ghost warriors were not aggressive in their crossing of the Swansleep. The quake had proved very disruptive to them, even as it gave the means for the Delvers to cross Riven Deep. It was that dwarven crossing that had made Natac’s position at the river untenable; if they had stayed in place, Zystyl’s force would have attacked them from behind, and there would have been no survival. Instead, Natac had ordered the general withdrawal and now simply hoped to get his army away to fight on another day.

While the Argentian elves watched for pursuit, the elves of Barantha and the forest trolls formed two vast formations, leaving behind the valley of the Swansleep as they started across the dry plains. From the back of the mighty dragon, Natac could see the plumes of dust raised by these marchers and knew that they would reach the hills within a few days. Each had a large contingent of centaurs towing their batteries, the silver metallic carriages mingled into the long files of warriors. It was encouraging to see that the troops, despite the orders to withdraw, were moving in good order and maintaining an impressive speed.

To the left Natac saw another column of dust, and they flew low to see the Hyaccan elves, the only mounted troops of his army. Beyond were the massive rock piles, where the slabs that had carried the Delvers across Riven Deep had come to rest. The Tlaxcalan had seen many examples of powerful magic since he had come to Nayve, but never had he witnessed anything comparable to this: the great uprooting of the very landscape, the use of that ground to carry troops onto an otherwise inaccessible battlefield. He didn’t want to think about it too much, for when he did, it seemed impossible to comprehend any means whereby they could win this war, not against an enemy that could marshal such unspeakable power.

Yet still, they would try. Below him the riders of Janitha Khandaughter were already making the dwarves pay for their advance. The elves on their nimble ponies skirmished with the Delvers, riding close, showering the dwarves with arrows, then galloping away before the iron golems could come up. Like the elf and trollish infantry, the elven riders were fighting cautiously, giving ground instead of lives. Natac was confident they would reach the Ringhills with their numbers intact.

Swinging through a lofty circle, the dragon winged back across the plains. The ghost warriors were a teeming blot on the right, like a brown stain spreading across the ground. They had finally crossed the Swansleep, but they advanced on the plains as a great, broad front, not any formation of marching columns. Their numbers seemed infinite, extending far back to the river and beyond.

Far past that place, to the metalward of the enemy, there was one more group of warriors, out of sight even from this lofty altitude. Faerie messengers had brought word from Roland Boatwright, informing Natac that the druids and warriors whose boats had survived the battle with the armada had debarked onto shore and were marching toward the Ringhills. They would need to take an indirect route, crossing the Snakesea instead of the plains, since the enemy army was between them and their destination. That sea crossing was not difficult, not when powerful druids were involved, and Natac welcomed the thought of further help. Roland’s force was not numerous but included many druids and the vast majority of the earth warriors that had been summoned to Nayve over the past fifty years. They would reach the Ringhills, and they would join his army.

But what would happen then?

Regillix Avatar seemed to be pondering the same question. He turned his great head, banking sideways to regard the general who was his passenger. “How do you intend to hold them at the hills?” he asked.

“We will need to dig a trench, erect an earthen wall,” replied Natac, who had given the matter considerable thought. “As deep and as high as we can make them. Then we force them to a halt, and when they try to go around us, we simply dig a new ditch and raise a new wall.”

“A wall around the Center, perhaps,” said the dragon thoughtfully. “A great undertaking, to be sure.”

“It’s the only choice we have,” Natac said, once more dejected about the prospects of the next battle. “But the pieces are set in motion now. We have to wait until Tamarwind and Awfulbark reach the hills with their troops. For now, can you return us to the city?”

“Of course.”

The dragon turned his bearing toward the Center of Everything, winging high over the plains. Regillix was exceptionally untalkative during the long flight back to Circle at Center, and this suited his passenger as well. Having seen to the deployment of his army, Natac’s mind was focused on a single question. He only hoped he could find the answer when they got back to the temple of the Worldweaver.

The spire of the loom came into sight before them as the dragon glided over the Ringhills. The sun ascended toward Darken as they crossed the great lake. Knowing his rider’s urgency, the wyrm flew low over the city, toward the center itself. People came into the streets as they passed, some of them cheering and waving, the vast majority, however, looking up in mute, prayerful hope. Natac barely noticed, so intense was the question burning in his mind.

Before full darkness, Regillix Avatar set down within the ring created by the Grove, the Senate, and the College, the sacred ground at the Center of Everything. Natac slid down the scaled flank, his own feet landing on the ground a split second after the dragon’s. Druids were already coming toward them, but the general didn’t want to wait around for greetings or other formalities.

“Thanks, old friend. Rest here as you need,” Natac said. “I must go into the temple.”

“Of course,” said the dragon. “I grow hungry, but I know the druids will feed me well. Indeed, here come several with a small herd of beeves. A splendid appetizer, I can tell! Now go, learn what you must.”

Immediately Natac was running toward the marble temple at the base of the loom. He took note of the empty plazas, the gardens where the flowers bloomed in silent luster. Though Darken was an hour away, there were only a few druids present, a pair of stout, sturdy tillers working in a field, and a few carpenters hammering away in the boatyard.

“Where’s Miradel?” he cried, bursting through the temple doors. There were a dozen acolytes within, spinning wool for the Loom of the Worldweaver. Several of them gasped, and one, an elder woman of Oriental origin, shook her head. “We know nothing of this matter-only the goddess sees all.”

Natac looked at the golden doors leading to the inner sanctum. He had never passed through that portal, though he had come to this room with Miradel on numerous occasions, even going as far as the Rockshaft, the now-sealed chute that had once been open all the way down to the First Circle.

Passing the sealed iron portal of the shaft, he hesitated only for a moment, then strode forward, ignoring the entreaties of the druid wool spinners. “No-it is forbidden! You must not!”

He pushed the doors, which opened almost effortlessly despite their obviously massive weight. Stepping through, he swayed to a momentary sense of disorientation: it seemed that the room he entered was far larger than the exterior walls would allow. The opposite wall of the circular chamber was far away, and the whole periphery was a collage of brilliantly colored fabric. He could discern no details in those colors, but he knew at once that this was the Tapestry, the record of all histories on the Seven Circles, stories as woven by the goddess herself into the fabric of time.

The loom was a massive machine, as large as a cottage. Levers and wheels whirred, stroked, and turned. Six huge spools were mounted at one end, feeding strands of thread into the tablelike slab of the machine. Plates moved back and forth, and these strands merged and mingled until the finished Tapestry, a fabric no more than six feet across, emerged from the end of the loom opposite the spools. The Tapestry flowed toward the wall, where it formed the terminus of the great coil of material, ever growing longer.

“This is unusual.”

The speaker was an elderly woman, a person Natac noticed for the first time. She sat at the loom, working the pedals with her feet, moving strong fingers across the threads, linking them and crossing them with dextrous motions so nimble and quick that the man could not even see the individual movements. This was the Goddess Worldweaver, he knew, as he beheld the immortal being for the first time.

“Explain yourself. Immediately,” she demanded.

“Where is Miradel?” he asked bluntly.

He didn’t know what to expect, but nevertheless, the Worldweaver took him by surprise when she shrugged, then curled her lip in scorn. “She is gone, dead. I care not, and you should have more important concerns as well.”

“What? No-impossible!” he shouted, though he knew it was all too conceivable that his beloved had met some dire fate. “Tell me-where did she go? How did she perish?”

“Go away. I have work to do, and so do you,” snapped the goddess.

Despite his determination, Natac found himself walking out of the sanctum, through the anteroom, onto the lakeside plaza outside of the temple itself. He stared at the swirling stars, the ghostly spire of the loom, and tried to decide what to do. Why had he been dismissed so curtly? Clearly, she was displeased-but with him or with Miradel? And could he believe her words about his lover’s fate?

“She lives!” he said with determination that might have been nothing more than his will. Even so, it was real belief, and it compelled him to continue his search for an answer. He left the temple to cross the gardens of the Center, coming quickly to the great ivory halls of the College. Here he made his way to the apartments of the elfwoman he had known for more than three hundred years. He paused for only a second, then pounded on the door, surprising himself by the volume raised by his blows.

“Natac!” Belynda said, paling as she opened her door in response to his insistent knock. “It has been long since we have seen you in the city! How fares the battle?”

“Where’s Miradel?” he repeated, pushing through the door with an assertiveness that would not be denied. “Do you know what has happened to her?”

In the momentary guilt that flashed in her eye-elves were notoriously guileless-he knew that she did. But she quickly masked her expression and shook her head. “She is safe-for the time being, at least. But she has forbidden me to speak of this matter, especially to reveal her location.”

“Thank all gods that she lives!” Natac cried, relief overcoming his frustration-at least initially. “The goddess herself claimed she was dead, but I did not believe.”

“She told you that? I know that the Worldweaver does not approve of Miradel’s quest, so she is cold. But I am surprised that she would lie,” Belynda said. “You should know that Miradel strives for victory, serves bravely the cause of our war against the Deathlord.”

“I had no doubt about that.” He narrowed his eyes and confronted the sage-ambassador bluntly. “You have to tell me where she is, what she’s doing,” he urged. “Maybe I can help her. At least I deserve to know! She even deceived Cillia to go away, a fact I find hard to believe. Why?”

“She will tell you herself, when she returns,” Belynda said. “Until then, I must keep the faith I have made with her.”

Natac tried to change her mind, arguing, persuading, even threatening, but Belynda would not change her position. He was forced to leave her, eventually, when she pleaded that she would need to sleep before Lighten, and he realized that half the night had passed.

His mood was bleak as he made his way back to the gardens. He curled up under the great dragon’s wing to snatch a few hours of sleep, disdaining any of the hundreds of fine rooms that would have been offered to him in the Center’s environs.

He didn’t know what to think or where to go.

The call of the gargoyle echoed through the empty canyons, resonating until it seemed that the sound actively sought to drive Miradel mad. She clapped her hands to her ears, but even that did nothing to diminish the haunting refrain. Her stomach heaved, churning with raw fear, and for a second she had to clench her teeth against the urge to vomit.

“Are you all right?” Shandira asked, her dark brow furrowed with concern.

Miradel wanted to scream, How could anything possibly be all right? But she bit her tongue and forced herself to nod with some affectation of calm. “Yes-let’s keep going,” she urged.

After all, she reminded herself, the gargoyle had not yet discovered them. It had uttered its ghastly shriek several times during the night, but never had they so much as glimpsed it flying overhead. Instead, they had trekked for miles through the darkness, drawing-they hoped-ever closer to the vast throne of the Deathlord.

“Do you need to rest?” asked Miradel’s companion.

It was with a sense of surprise that she was able to answer truthfully, “No.” In fact, though they had carried their packs throughout the day and into the long night, she no longer felt the fatigue that had dragged her down upon her first tentative steps in this world of shadow and cold. Her shoulders were strong, her legs taut and supple, and even her lungs were in better shape; rarely during the last twenty hours had she even found herself out of breath.

“Let’s keep going,” she urged, and Shandira agreed.

“Just keep your eyes on the sky,” counseled the African woman, and Miradel nodded seriously.

It seemed that they had been playing this cat-and-mouse game for many hours, ever since the beast had first cried out during the twilight that passed for the middle of the day. The druid had been very conscious of that illumination, and at the Lighten Hour had watched overhead as most of the stars faded. So dark was this distant corner of the Fifth Circle, however, that some of the twinkling specks remained visible even during the day. Viewed from such a deep hole, the sky was a thick, purpled cosmos that seemed to extend to infinity, even in the midst of what was full daylight upon Nayve.

Dark as was the sky, the inky rock walls of this gorge were even blacker. The slopes were irregular and jagged, far too steep to climb. Fortunately, the floor of the chasm was smooth and relatively free of debris. No more than twenty or thirty feet wide, it nevertheless made for a good pathway, and the two druids had been following it for two days, working their way deeper into the labyrinthine citadel of the Deathlord.

Just before Lighten, they had even speculated that they were within a few hours of the great throne room-that valley in the mountain’s crest Miradel had observed through the Tapestry. That was before the gargoyle had screamed, however; since then, their efforts had been focused merely on survival.

“This way,” she said, indicating a wide passage that descended toward the direction that was neither metal nor wood. “We need to get lower, I think.”

The elder druid was in the lead, moving quickly, when Shandira screamed. The sound saved Miradel’s life. She threw herself onto the ground and crawled behind a rock as the air whooshed around her and a cold, gray shape winged past just a dozen feet overhead. The gargoyle uttered a cold, grating shriek, straining to climb, and the two druids scrambled to their feet, reversed direction, and sprinted along the floor of the winding ravine, desperately seeking something, anything, that would offer a hope of shelter.

A backward glance showed the monster rising into the sky, laboring to lift the heavy body with those slender wings. Soon it vanished from view beyond one of the lofty ridges that closed their upward view into such a narrow groove. The greatest advantage they had, Miradel realized, was the narrowness of the gorge floor. The gargoyle was simply too huge to fly down this low. But how long would that protection last?

“Here it comes again!” Shandira warned.

Those vast wings spread out like sinister arms, scraping the cliffs to either side of the gorge as the monster plunged downward. The two eyes blazed red, as if some infernal fire burned within the hideous skull, and when it roared again, it was close enough to leave the stink of foul breath lingering in the air.

The two druids ducked behind a large boulder where the slope met the floor. Miradel cringed downward as the monster flew overhead, watched as the wings scraped rocks from the rock walls, sending trickles of debris spattering downward.

This time, however, the gargoyle did not climb away. Instead, it landed with a thud on the ground just after it flew past, furling its wings to stand on a strapping pair of legs. The creature stood three or four times taller than a man, though-aside from the broad wings-its appearance was startlingly humanoid. It pivoted to face the druids, and Miradel was stunned by the blazing force of its eyes: like twin orbs of fire set into a stone framework. She saw the broad, muscular chest, and a sinewy neck supported a head that was bestial in visage but manly in shape. The belly sagged downward, swaying grotesquely as the creature shifted its weight from foot to foot. When it growled, the gargoyle revealed a mouth full of long, sharp fangs, and the twin horns rising from its forehead looked sharp and lethal. It reached with a handlike forepaw, fingers studded with dagger-sized claws.

Shandira pitched a rock that, unnoticed by Miradel, she had taken up. The missile bounced off the snarling snout, shattering into shards. Immediately the beast drew itself to its full height, threw back that awful head, and roared.

“Drop your pack-run!” cried Miradel, knowing that was their only chance of survival.

The two women instantly shucked their loads, spun around, and sprinted away, Shandira halting just long enough to push Miradel before her. They ran around the S-shaped bends in the ravine floor, hearing the roars of the monster, the pounding cadence of its steps coming right behind.

After a hundred yards they met a crossing ravine, wider and straighter than this one as it extended to right and left. Miradel’s first thought was that it was a likely route to the throne of the Deathlord; her second reminded her that their only chance was to find some narrow passage where the gargoyle could not pursue. She charged forward, crossing into the continuation of their original passage.

Here the narrow path started to descend, and this lent wings to their speed. At the same time, the walls grew steeper, closing in so that the gargoyle, even with wings tucked against its back, scraped roughly against the walls. The monster roared in rage as the route became more restricted, and from the fading sounds Miradel could tell that, at last, they were drawing away. The women sprinted so quickly that momentum carried Miradel right into the side when the corridor made a sharp turn. She simply pushed off and kept going, ignoring the pain in her scuffed palms, grateful that the sounds of pursuit grew farther and farther away.

“Here!” hissed Shandira, suddenly darting to the side. She grabbed Miradel’s arm and pulled her after, drawing them both into a narrow niche beneath a flat, overhanging boulder. “Be quiet!” whispered the African woman.

They barely breathed as the gargoyle came loping after them. Miradel winced but made no sound as a taloned foot pounded the ground just a few inches from her own. In the next instant the creature was gone, growling and snapping as it hastened along the narrow track.

The druids waited for several minutes, until they were certain that the creature had continued on. Only then did they emerge, agreeing in a silent exchange of looks that they would return to the wide, crossing ravine and there seek a path to the throne of the Deathlord.

Natac awakened to a gentle nudge. His reflexes, honed on the battlefield, caused him to sit upward and reach for his sword.

Then he recognized Belynda. She was kneeling beside him. Dawn, the sun’s initial descent toward Lighten, had just commenced, to judge from the pale violet of the sky.

“Come with me,” whispered the sage-ambassador, “and I will show you Miradel.”

Instantly he was up, following her through the garden until she came to a secluded glade. He wondered why she had changed her mind but didn’t want to ask, not now. In the little clearing a small fountain spumed from a marble bowl, while an interlacing hedge of lilac screened them from observation in all directions. Natac’s eyes fell upon the familiar shape of Belynda’s Globe of Seeing, the crystal ball awaiting them on its velvet pillow, covered with a soft cloth.

The sage-ambassador sat on the stone bench and lifted the veil. Natac took a seat on the opposite side, his attention unwavering. He saw the darkness within the Globe slowly brighten until it was a pearly murk, still shadowy and indistinct but suggestive of someplace dark, dangerous, and forbidding.

“It is Lighten where Miradel is, just as it is Lighten here,” Belynda explained. “But she sees precious little brightness from the sun.”

Natac could make out the black gorge, the stone walls rising forbiddingly to both sides. Miradel was there, with Shandira, walking down the floor of this sheer-walled gorge. There was no sign of plant nor water on the barren ground.

“She has gone to Loamar, the land of death,” Natac declared dully, certain in that instant of his identification. He looked at Belynda accusingly. “You sent her there. Why?”

“She insisted,” Belynda said, not backing down from his gaze. “She thinks that the Deathlord may have a weakness, something that will allow us to battle him.”

“She will die there,” he replied, numb with despair.

“Perhaps,” Belynda acknowledged unhelpfully. “But there is a chance, a decent chance, that she will return. In any event, we have a plan, if she can find a swirl of water. And maybe she will learn something of great importance before she does.”

“Why did the goddess deny her?” Natac wondered.

“I don’t know. She told me that the Worldweaver did not want her to make this trip, said it was hopeless. But also, the goddess spoke in terms that made Miradel believe even she did not fully understand the nature of Karlath-Fayd. So she has gone to find out for herself. She has survived this far, and she draws closer to the Deathlord’s citadel with every step.”

“Strange… what can the Worldweaver fear?”

“I don’t know, but that is why I decided I must show you and tell you. Since her goddess has apparently turned her back on her, you and I are all Miradel has.”

“Indeed, she is not dead, not yet,” said Natac, an agony of despair hushing his voice, “but she may as well be.”

“Do not despair. I will watch her as much as I can. If there is something you can do, I will send for you. Beyond that, we can only try to do our jobs.”

“I have been thinking,” Regillix Avatar said, his voice sonorous and immensely dignified. He spoke to Natac and Belynda, to the sage-enchantress Quilene, and to Cillia and a score of fellow druids, including the ancient scholar Socrates who stood strangely intent, his wire-framed spectacles perched on his thin nose. To Natac, it seemed as though the elder druid was not really listening; nevertheless, his presence here indicated that the dragon had something rather thoughtful to say. The serpent cleared his throat and lowered his head so that he was looking at the humans and elves from very near their own level. “There is a place I could go for help in this war.”

“Where?” asked Natac, more curious than hopeful. After all, he had spent the better part of five decades working on that very problem and had not been able to come up with any dramatic ideas.

Full daylight found this group arrayed near the lakeside, at the edge of one of the few fields large enough for the great serpent to land and, more important, take off again. The temple was nearby, the silver spire striving toward the fully bright sun. As if to punctuate the dragon’s words, the goddess chose that moment to cast her threads. Humans, elves, and dragons waited patiently as the crackling ball of light slowly ascended the silver spire, finally exploding outward in a burst of lightning that blasted upward to vanish into the sky.

“A powerful storm of wild threads, today,” Cillia said. “That bodes ill for Earth.”

“These are days of ill tidings for many circles, including my homeland,” the dragon continued. “But I intend to go there, to the Sixth Circle, Arcati. There are many dragons there, and some mighty angels. All of them, I am certain, would be willing to aid us in our cause.”

“The Overworld?” Cillia sounded as surprised as Natac felt. “Even supposing you could get there, why would the dragons and angels go to war for Nayve?”

“The harpies have ever been the curse of our circle, hated by all creatures of knowledge and kindness. Dragons and angels both take a long view of existence and also of responsibility. When they learn that the harpies have come here, down the Worldfall, I believe they will want to pursue, to make war upon them in this place they do not belong. Furthermore, I understand more about the Deathlord than I ever knew before. As you druids have explained, this is a war not just to preserve Nayve, but to save all the cosmos. I believe this completely, and my fellow dragons will accept my word.”

“I believe you completely, in turn,” Natac said. “But that raises the far greater question: how can you return to a circle that lies on the other side of the sun?”

“That is the bigger problem, old friend of mine. I can only say what I am thinking about, not what I know.”

Natac waited expectantly, and the dragon lowered his crocodilian head in an almost sheepish gesture. “I shall try to fly there,” he explained.

“How? Fly past the sun? Impossible!” Voices murmured disbelief and outright shock, sounds that slowly faded as the dragon raised his head and, once again, looked lordly and imperial.

“I will make the attempt,” he informed them. “And I shall have a little help. Perhaps my counselor would be good enough to explain?”

For the first time Natac saw that Socrates, far from daydreaming, was paying very close attention. The scholarly druid came forward and shrugged his shoulders tentatively. “There are forces hammering upon the Fourth Circle, as we all know. Most notably, the Worldfall.

“But less is understood of the counter to that force, in the region of Winecker. My analysis has shown that there are periods of great upheaval there, especially of wind. This, I believe, is air swelling upward in response to the power of the Worldfall. It is theoretically possible that someone-a flyer, of course-could exploit this upward current of air, riding it even beyond the Fourth Circle, perhaps all the way to the Overworld.”

“Theoretically?” declared Natac. “But practically speaking, you’ll burn up as you go past the sun!” Why did it seem as though all those he cherished were determined to throw their lives away on doomed, foolish quests?

“Not necessarily,” Regillix Avatar demurred. “It will be hot, certainly, but I may survive. And in any event, I intend to try.”