Nightchild

Chapter 6

Denser had no trouble gaining access to the Dordovan College library despite it being after dark, when the grounds were closed to all but College mages and staff. Indeed, on The Raven's arrival in the city the previous day, Vuldaroq had been anxious to help them in their investigations and offer any information available. He had even welcomed Denser and Ilkar's suggestion that they read the Tinjata Prophecy but had extended his official invitation to Denser alone.

Denser was, of course, extremely suspicious. But, with The Unknown and Ilkar out combing the streets for contacts and anything the Dordovans had missed, there was nothing for him to do but read and hope it became apparent why Vuldaroq had been so accommodating.

The original Tinjata Prophecy was kept under airtight glass in another part of the College. What Denser's assigned archivist produced for him was a large leather-bound volume, light brown and titled in embossed gold leaf. It contained upwards of sixty thick parchment pages, the left-hand pages being a transcript of the original lore, the right, a translation, which was incomplete.

Denser had asked why there were blanks in apparently random places, to be told that those parts of the lore were for the eyes of lore scribes only. He had frowned, curiosity aroused, and read what he could.

The early pages turned out to be a rambling account of the dangers of inter-College sexual union, the threat to Balaia of a return of the One Way of magic, and the importance of identifying and retarding the development of any such mage identified.

Denser raised his eyebrows. It seemed that Dordovan thinking hadn't advanced too far on this subject in the intervening millennia.

He read on, past some blank and fractured passages of translation, the prophecy moving to encompass the likely results of ignoring the threat or of failing to control the developing mage. Denser's heart began to beat faster, his mouth drying. Balaia had already been struck by tidal wave, hurricane and days of unbroken thunderclouds and here they were, all laid out. It was hard to believe it was a prophecy, not a diary because, not only did Tinjata foresee the weather systems, he also knew where they would strike.

' "The sea will rise and smite the mouth of the land."' It didn't take a genius to deduce that Tinjata had meant Sunara's Teeth. ' "The sun shall hide its face and the sky's smears will grow thick and deliver floods upon the earth. And when the gods sigh, the tall will be stunted where they felt most secure and the proud will be laid low, their stone temples the graves of their families." '

And further on, Denser shivered at what might be to come. ' "The beasts from below shall rise to gorge themselves and the mountains will crumble, their dust seen by none, for the eyes of the world will be blinded, awaiting the new light of the One. It shall be the light of hell on the face of the land."'

'Dear Gods.' He looked up and found the archivist looking at him. 'It really is happening, isn't it?' The mage nodded. 'Is there more?'

'It's worth you reading,' said the archivist. 'It might help you understand our fears more fully.'

Denser blew out his cheeks. T already understand. I just don't agree with your methods. This is my daughter we're talking about.'

'What can I say?' The archivist shrugged.

'You could say, "can I get you some coffee and a sandwich".'

'I'll be back in a moment but don't leave the library. There are still those who are very bitter about what happened the last time you were in our Tower.'

The archivist bowed slightly and walked away, Denser hearing the door shut gently. It wasn't so much Denser they were bitter about, he assumed, more his Familiar who had, at his bidding, killed a Dordovan mage in a room high up in the Tower. He had never felt any sympathy for the man – his had been a stupid action in capturing the mind-melded demon in the first place – but he had regretted the necessity of his death nonetheless. Dawnthief and the salvation of

Balaia had been at stake and there was nothing that couldn't be sacrificed.

Denser turned his attention back to the prophecy, flicking on, the pages creaking against their bindings. He frowned, looking again at one of the partially blank pages. There was something not right about the parchment. He brought the lantern closer and looked, smoothing down the opposite pages. They were different colours, the translated paler than the transcript. And the clinching evidence was there in the spine and the bindings. He quickly checked all the blank and part blank pages, six of them. There could be no doubt. They were newer.

He really had no choice. With his heart thumping in his chest, and his ears straining for any sound of the returning archivist, Denser drew a dagger and slit the untranslated pages from the volume, folding them hurriedly and stuffing them inside his shirt. He resheathed his dagger and turned to an undamaged spread as the door opened.

'Thank you,' he said as a tray containing coffee and bread were placed on the table. He poured a mug with a slightly quivering hand. That had been a little close.

'Anything you need help with?' asked the archivist.

'No,' said Denser, smiling. 'I'm all but done. Just a few more passages.'

The Dordovan moved away. Denser leaned back and watched him, blowing on his coffee and taking a sip. It wasn't too hot and he gulped down half the mug. He took a bite out of the cold meat sandwich. The archivist disappeared behind a shelf and Denser took his chance, closing the volume and snapping the clasps into place. To him, it looked so obvious that pages were missing; to one who wasn't looking, there probably wasn't anything to arouse suspicion. Probably…

Deciding not to take the risk, Denser drained his coffee, grabbed another mouthful of sandwich and stood up, chair scraping slightly on the smooth wood floor and picked up the book. Heading back to the shelf where he thought the prophecy sat, he was intercepted by the archivist.

'Don't trouble yourself,' he said. 'I'll take it.' He held out his hands.

'It's no trouble.'

'I insist.'

Denser smiled as generously as he could muster. 'Thank you.' He followed the Dordovan to the gap in the eight-row-high shelves. The man raised the book to slide it home and paused, a slight frown on his face. He hefted it, feeling its weight. Denser held his breath. It could only have been a heartbeat but it felt a lifetime before the archivist shrugged and replaced it, turning to see Denser's renewed smile.

'Thanks for your help,' he said.

'My pleasure.' The frown hadn't quite disappeared from his face. 'Take the food on your way out. The guard will see you to the gate.'

Denser proffered a hand, which the Dordovan shook.

'Goodbye,' said Denser. 'Let's hope this ends well for all of us.'

T can second that.' At last a smile.

Denser walked as calmly as he could to the door of the library and summoned the guard to see him out of the Tower, across the grounds and into the streets of Dordover. Only there did he start to relax, a broad grin spreading across his face. He had to find the others and quickly. Vuldaroq might not welcome them for much longer.

It wasn't until early the next morning that the archivist's nagging itch led him back to the Tinjata Prophecy for another look. His swearing shattered the calm of the library.

The Raven, if you could call them that, had come and gone in two days. So far as Vuldaroq and his network could gather, they had found out nothing new, which was something of a shame but hardly a surprise. The Dordovan College guard and mage spies had interrogated every possible contact and lowlife in the City. Spies and assassins were tracking every lead but so far, though some clues to her direction were known, there was nothing as to her final destination.

Yet still he felt satisfied that his plans were forming well. The bait had been taken and Vuldaroq felt he could relax in the knowledge that Balaia's finest were immersed in the search. All that irked him was that, though Denser had taken in the information Vuldaroq had wanted him to from the prophecy, he had stolen that which was not

on offer. And the Tower Lord did not want to risk him finding someone to translate the lore for him. Someone, for instance, like his lore scribe wife, Erienne.

He had come to a bar well away from the College and just east of the central cloth market, a well-to-do area where a senior mage could relax without interruption and meet discreetly with whom he pleased. This time, his companion was less brash and arrogant than at their first, rather difficult meeting, but was no less driven.

'You have to understand that the nature of mages has changed since the Wesmen invasion. We cannot afford to wantonly sacrifice each other to satisfy the cravings of a maimed Black Wing. We are trying to regain our strength, not pare it still further.' Vuldaroq took a long drink from his goblet and refilled it from the carafe of very expensive Blackthorne red. A serving woman brought another bowl of Korina Estuary mussels and oysters. 'Excellent.'

'But you understand my price cannot be reduced,' said Selik, his face hooded. T will have the bitch, with or without your blessing, but together it will be easier for us all to achieve our ultimate goals.'

Vuldaroq chuckled. Selik had been lucky to escape with his life from the College and had done so only with Vuldaroq's personal intervention. Even so, the Black Wing had left pale and shaken, freed from the entrapping spells in which he had been so quickly entwined. There had been shouting, pushing and recrimination but most of all there had been a shocked disbelief, and it had been this that had allowed Vuldaroq to get Selik away.

'Erienne is still one of our most talented and fertile mages. Her death would be a blow the College would feel keenly. I do not necessarily share the College's view.'

'So?'

'So I will meet your price but you must operate only through me. And now I have organised for you a little assistance.'

'Who?' Selik's single eye stared bleakly from his cowl.

'The Raven.'

Selik laughed, a pained, rasping noise that shuddered his ruined lung. 'And what help can they give me? I am already closer to your precious prize than they will ever be.'

'I would advise you never to underestimate The Raven or their resourcefulness. And for all your torture of the elf you suspect of

belonging to this Guild of Drech, he revealed nothing. The Raven are a useful extra force. Monitor them as I will and use what you find as you see fit. As I will.'

Selik rose. 'Then I am already late. The Raven left some hours ago.'

'And headed south,' said Vuldaroq. 'One more thing, Black Wing. Remember with whom you are dealing. Erienne left in response to a signal that pierced our mana shield as easily as a knife through water. They retain great magical power and I need to know where they are. See that Erienne does not die before she tells you their location. But see that she does die.'

Selik bowed very slightly. 'My Lord Vuldaroq, strange though this union of ours is, we both understand that magic is a necessary force. The Black Wings only seek to cut the mould from the otherwise healthy fruit. We are both fighting for the same cause.' He left the inn, Vuldaroq's eyes on him all the way.

T don't think so, Selik,' muttered the mage to himself as he prised open another oyster. Unexpected pieces were being added to what could turn out to be a very satisfying conclusion. Perhaps more than one enemy would be laid to rest forever. In a while he would have to organise the interception of The Raven and the taking of the stolen parchment, but for now he had more oysters to enjoy and Vuldaroq was not a man to let excellence go to waste.

Outside, the wind was getting up, ratding the windows of the inn. Dordover could be in for a stormy night.

The day dawned bright, light streaming through cracks in the barn walls. Ilkar, The Unknown and Denser had begged the shelter from a farmer, happening upon his land late at night with the wind battering at their bodies. But it had blown over quickly and now was just an unpleasant memory.

Ilkar rolled over and sat up in his makeshift bed of hay, in the loft above the animals, and came face to face with Denser.

'Gods, but I shouldn't have left Julatsa,' he said. 'Every morning for days, I've been waking next to a beautiful face and figure and for some twisted reason, I've exchanged that for your bloody beard and stinking armpit odour.'

'You know you've missed them,' said Denser, scratching at his short-trimmed beard.

'No,' said Ilkar, heading for the ladder. 'I have not.'

'Hey!' The Unknown's voice came from below. 'Stop chattering and get moving.'

'You heard the man,' said Ilkar, smiling.

'Just like old times,' muttered Denser.

'Absolutely nothing like old times whatsoever,' returned Ilkar.

Outside the barn, they followed The Unknown who was striding up towards the farmhouse across an empty paddock. All the horses were still in the barn and stables. Inside the two-storey house's kitchen, a plate of ham steamed on a long table and the aroma of a sweet leaf tea filled the air. Ilkar raised his eyebrows.

'Very decent of him,' he said, sitting next to The Unknown and forking some meat on to a thick slice of bread.

'Not really,' said The Unknown. 'I've paid him.'

The farm was fifteen miles south of Dordover and one of a cluster lying in a shallow valley near the main trail to Lystern. Occupied during the Wesmen invasion, they had been rebuilt, their fields replanted and animal stocks replenished, restoring them to their key position, supplying both Colleges. Mage-friendly, Ilkar had been confident they'd get a good reception from any of the farms and, since neither he nor Denser had been keen to remain in Dordover, the settlement had been the obvious choice.

'Now listen,' said The Unknown. 'It's apparent that the Dordo-vans are very serious in their attempts to find Erienne and Lyanna and that means we have to be efficient. So far they've squandered their fifty-day advantage but it can't go on forever and their mage spies will be everywhere, just listening. We should also consider the possibility that we'll be followed.

'Now, that curious friend of Will's told us about activity to the south of the City on the night Erienne left, if you can believe what he said, and even more unreliably, that drunk you found, Denser, reckoned he'd seen a woman and a girl getting into a carriage in about the same place.'

'So what?' asked Denser. 'We already knew they left Dordover. It tells us nothing.'

The Unknown shook his head and sipped the tea. 'Think, Denser.

You've spent too much time dabbling in Xetesk's politics. It tells us two things and we can infer a third. First, that they had help, wherever they were going. Second, a carriage suggests a longish trip. Third, they headed south.' He held up a hand to stop Denser speaking. 'Now I'm sure the Dordovans have guessed as much and no doubt they have representatives in every town and city south of here. What they don't have is the information I found out yesterday afternoon.'

'What information?' Ilkar frowned.

'Sorry not to share this until now but too many people knew why we were in Dordover. I bumped into an old merchant friend of mine who travels a good deal between Greythorne and Dordover. He saw a carriage driven by an elf leaving Greythorne three weeks back and heading for Arlen. I know it's not much but it's more than Vuldaroq knows. I think that's where we should be headed.'

'Will this friend talk to anyone else?' asked Denser.

The Unknown cocked his head. 'Hey,' he said. 'It's me you're talking to.'

'Arlen's a long way round from Xetesk and the Balans,' said Ilkar.

'Just what I was worrying about,' said The Unknown. 'Here's what I propose. Denser, you get to Xetesk as fast as you can. ShadowWings would be best and we'll bring your horse. Ilkar and I will head for the Balan Mountains and talk to Hirad. This could get nasty and we need his blade and his strength. Then we meet up as soon as we can in Greythorne.'

'You reckon you can persuade him?' asked Denser.

'Well we've got more chance if you're not there, put it that way,' replied The Unknown. 'He had some particularly legitimate grievances.'

'I know, I know,' said Denser sharply. 'But you know Mount politics, Unknown. Gods' sakes, how far have you got in pressuring the completion of research into safe release of the Protector army?'

'The group I am funding is considerably more advanced than yours which seeks understanding of the realignment of the dimensions. Besides which, I cannot be in Xetesk for long periods. I don't live there, unlike you. And however much Diera understands my desire to see the Protectors have some sort of choice, I am supposed to be retired. Anyway, I don't think this is the time to debate the

rights and wrongs of the Mount's organisation,' said The Unknown. 'But you haven't helped yourself, Denser. You haven't kept him informed so he's gone and sought his own information. All he's heard is about your ascension to the fringes of the Circle Seven, and nothing about serious dimensional research.'

'He has to be patient,' protested Denser. 'It's a delicate-'

'Denser, don't try it with me!' snapped The Unknown. 'For one, Hirad has never had any patience and you should always have borne that in mind. For another, it's been more than five years and nothing has happened. Those dragons saved Balaia and so far as he's concerned, Balaia, and more particularly Xetesk, has turned its back on them. And I have to say I have a good deal of sympathy for him.'

'We need him, Unknown. Dordover are a real threat to my family, I can feel it.'

'I am aware of that. All I can say is, we'll do what we can and we'll see you in Greythorne in fourteen days or so.'

'That's a long time,' said Ilkar.

'Then we'd best not hang around,' said The Unknown. 'Come on, eat up. It's time we were on our separate ways.'

Erienne sprinted through the orchard and flung the door aside, her daughter's screams resounding in her ears. She turned right and ran down the corridor towards the Al-Drechar teaching chambers buried in the hillside.

Lyanna was sobbing now, the sounds a torture in Erienne's mind. Her anger flared. Through a set of double doors she all but flattened Ren'erei, who caught her by the arm, arresting her progress.

'Let me go, Ren'erei,' she hissed.

'Calm down, Erienne. What's wrong with you?'

Erienne struggled against her grip, unable to break it.

'Those bloody witches are hurting my daughter.'

'Erienne, I can assure you that is the very last thing they intend.' But her dismissal and the laughter in her voice merely sent Erienne's blood racing yet higher.

'Let me go. Right now.'

'Not until you calm down.'

Now she looked at Ren, seeing her eyes flinch involuntarily. 'Let

me go or I'll drop you where you stand,' she whispered. 'I will sec my daughter now.'

Ren'erei stepped away and Erienne ran on without a second glance, following the sounds in her mind, reaching the door to the Whole Room and throwing it open.

'What the hell is going on?' she demanded, but the last words almost died in her throat. Lyanna, apparently happy, was drawing on a chalk board with bright coloured chalks, the Al-Drechar clustered around her desk, staring intently at her work.

Ephemere glanced up. 'Erienne, you look flustered. Has something happened?'

Erienne frowned. The wailing sobs in her head were gone, the screams a distant echo.

'I heard-' she began and took a pace forward. 'Lyanna, are you all right?'

Not even looking up, Lyanna nodded. 'Yes, Mummy.'

Erienne turned back to Ephemere who, with Aviana, was walking towards her across the bare but warm, firelit chamber, the flames dancing across the polished stone walls and ceiling.

'Do you feel all right?' she asked.

'No, I-' Erienne's frown deepened. 'I heard… in my head. Lyanna was crying and screaming. It was horrible.'

'I can well imagine,' said Aviana. 'It's probably memories she's exorcising subconsciously. I'm sorry that they are affecting you. This isn't a side effect we'd anticipated. But, as you can see, Lyanna is quite contented.'

The two Al-Drechar continued to move toward her and Erienne felt herded back to the door.

'It wasn't a dream,' she said. T wasn't imagining it.'

'No one's suggesting you were,' said Ephemere, her arm out, shepherding Erienne away. 'Perhaps you need some air.'

'Yes,' said Erienne. 'Lyanna, do you need Mummy?'

'No,' came the bright reply.

'Fine.' She couldn't fathom it. The cries had been of pain and fear. She had felt them and come running as she had done a hundred times before in Dordover. Yet Lyanna was completely untroubled, on the outside at least. It didn't make sense. Exorcising memories.

Perhaps. She had to think. 'I'll take that flight above the house, if you don't mind,' she said.

Ephemere smiled. 'Of course. An excellent idea. Clear your head. Come back when you're done. Lyanna will be finished by then, I'm sure.'

'See you later then, darling.'

'Uh-huh.' Lyanna continued her drawing.

A loud, flat crack, echoing in the distance brought Lord Denebre to a slightly confused wakefulness in his chair by the roaring fire. Taking a nap in his warmly-decorated tower chamber as he always did after lunch, with the sun streaming in through the widened casde window, the old Lord shook his head, wondering whether the sound hadn't been part of a dream. His health had never fully recovered since his town's occupation by the Wesmen and the pain that periodically gripped his stomach was getting worse and more prolonged as the seasons went by. It was an occupation that had claimed the life of Genere, his wife of forty-five years, and the pain in his stomach was eclipsed by that still in his heart.

Lord Denebre levered himself from his chair and walked slowly over to the tower window which overlooked the castle courtyard and across into his beloved town, from which every scar of Wesmen invasion had been scrubbed. It was a warm late afternoon, though there were clouds sweeping up from the south that promised rain.

Looking down over the beautiful lakeside town, Denebre saw that the noise hadn't been a dream. Everywhere, people had stopped to look. Though he was old, Denebre's eyes retained all their sharpness. He could see his townsfolk point or shrug, shake their heads and continue on their way. The market was picking up again after the midday meal, the hawkers' cries floated above the hubbub, men and women had turned out of the handful of inns and traffic moved sedately down the cobbled, impeccably clean streets.

Lord Denebre didn't have a vast fortune but what he could spare, he set to keeping the place of his birth as he remembered it as a child. His people respected and protected the town and those who travelled in and sought to take advantage of what they saw as a soft underbelly soon discovered a hard edge to the Lord's governance. He wouldn't have gibbets on display in the town, but on the

approaches they occasionally swung with the corpse of robber or thief. In his naivete, he had thought a couple of examples were all that it would take but over the years he had never ceased to be amazed at the arrogance and stupidity of criminals.

Mainly, though, his life had been a joy and his sons and daughters had pledged to keep the idyll when he was gone. That had made it all the harder when the Wesmen had come, threatening the destruction and death of all he held dear.

Gone now, of course. Back across the Blackthornes. He doubted they would ever invade again. And certainly not before he was long entombed. Denebre smiled to himself and took a deep breath at the window. A second crack shattered the calm of the day, bringing silence to the market. It was an unearthly sound, reverberating through the ground and sending a tiny shudder through the castle walls.

Denebre's face creased into a frown and he squinted out, shading his eyes with a shaking, mottled hand and peering away towards the low hills that bordered the small lake's southern shores where he had fished as a boy.

A black scar ran down the face of the grass- and bracken-covered slope. Denebre had not recalled it being there before… perhaps a fire during the hot, dry summer. He dismissed the notion; it was not something he would have missed.

His heart skipped a beat and raced. The scar was moving. Outwards and down, swallowing more of the lush green and belching a cloud of dust into the sky.

'No, no,' he whispered, breath suddenly ragged. Two more cracks assaulted the ears, two more fractures appeared, land falling into the instant chasms, the hideous brown-black lines rushing down the hillside accompanied by a low, dread rumbling.

The vibration through the castle increased. In the marketplace, voices were raised in anxiety and incomprehension. Stalls were rattling, a stack of oranges spilled and bounced onto the street as stallholders rushed to make their goods secure, first instincts for preservation of business, not self.

Moving impossibly fast, the ruptures, which the town's people couldn't see, tore through the south shore and disappeared beneath the lake. For one blissful moment, Denebre thought the water had

halted the charge but the rumbling never died and the tremors increased their intensity. A picture fell from the wall behind him. The logs shifted on the fire.

Turmoil churned the placid surface of the lake. Waves fled out from its centre in every direction, great bubbles boiled to the surface and finally, with a huge, sucking thud, a wall of water erupted, sending a mist into the air, falling back like a deluge of rain.

Denebre gripped the window sill, the vibrations through his feet leaving him uncertain of his balance. Dust shivered from every crevice and his chair rattled against the stone flags.

Devastation was coming. The farmland north of the lake fell into the void as if hell were pulling it down. Tears were streaming down the old Lord's face. What the Wesmen couldn't achieve, nature would wreak in the blink of an eye.

He leaned out of the window. Down in the town, milling confusion reined. People were screaming or barking warnings. Feet slithered on heaving streets, doors were closed, windows fell from frames and the roar of approaching doom still had no face.

'Run, run.' Denebre cursed his voice. Weak with age, it couldn't hope to carry and though he waved an arm frantically, even if anyone was looking, they couldn't hope to understand what he was doing. He was helpless, and the earth was swallowing his town.

Land folded inwards at its borders, the fractures tore into the first building and moved on, faster than a horse could gallop and straight as an arrow, heading for the casde. The world was shaking. Sudden subsidence robbed Denebre of his purchase and he fell heavily, feeling a bone in his hand snap as he tried to absorb the fall.

He cried out, his breath coming in short gasps, but no one would be hearing him. Outside, the rumble had become a deafening roar, as of some earthbound leviathan finding its voice at the surface.

Denebre clawed his way back to his feet, the floor around him shaking, the window frame creaking, glass long since gone. A timber crashed down behind him, thumping into the fire, scattering burning logs across the floor, embers filling the small room. The old Lord ignored it all.

Panic had engulfed the streets and market place. Men, women and children ran blindly away from a threat that showed no mercy, Timbers split, stone cracked, and whole buildings heaved, struck by

giant ripples of land before collapsing into the maw of the beast, crushing anyone in their path.

A choking dust mixed with smoke thickened over Denebre. People scrabbled desperately against the tilting land only to lose grip and slip shrieking into the depths of the earth. The castle gatehouse rocked violently and crumbled, huge gashes fled along the courtyard walls and orders from guardsmen were lost in the awful wailing of horses and the chaos of a hundred poor souls trying to save themselves from a fate from which there was no escape.

Lord Denebre's tower shifted ominously. Behind him, another timber hit the floor. Slates from the roof fell past the window to land in the crevice opening up before the front doors of his own house and not pausing before sweeping under the keep.

'May the Gods have mercy upon us,' he whispered.

The tower shuddered again, the window frame loosened and fell. The air was filled with dust and the creaking of protesting stone and wood. Denebre stood firm, leaning against the shifting wall but the keep groaned, a mortal wound struck in its foundations.

Beyond the walls, the market place was gone, replaced by piles of rubble, mounds of earth thrown up by the leviathan and scattered with bodies, precious few of whom were moving.

Lord Denebre took one last look at the sky, blue and peaceful, the sun shining down. Beneath his feet, the tower moved sickeningly sideways, the violence of the movement all but breaking his grip on the loose window sill. His knees gave way and he sagged forwards, determined not to lose sight of his beloved town. A thudding far below him, reverberating through his feet, told him of central supports breaking.

The tower teetered, the roar of hell pounding at his ears, the sounds of collapsing stone only just audible. His chamber shifted and sagged. Slabs of rock fell through the ceiling to smash into and through the floor and the fall of slate outside became a torrent.

A third massive shudder and the tower leaned outwards at an impossible angle, slipping, sliding on inexorably. Denebre wiped his face clear of dust and tears.

'Not long now, Genere, my love. Not long now.'

The air was clear, warm and pure in her lungs, as Erienne's Shadow-Wings took her slowly higher, revealing more and more of the quite

extraordinary structure that dominated Herendeneth's single shallow peak.

She'd meant to let the air blow through her, dismissing confusion to allow her to think about all that was going awry. But the scene below her changed all that and for an age it seemed, it filled her eyes and her mind.

The house of the Al-Drechar was sprawling, disorganised and magnificent. She hovered, identifying the orchard where Lyanna loved to play, and worked outwards.

Immediately below and towards the path to the landing, she could see what would have been the original grand entrance to the house when it had first been built. Half-towers and gallery-sized rooms were covered with a slate roof which itself was bestrewn with vibrant green creeper. More recently built and making the new frontage, was a lower structure of wood and glass, a long slender entrance corridor that Erienne remembered running along after Ren'erei, on their arrival that now seemed a long time ago.

To the left of the orchard, three slate-roofed wings jutted like the legs of a monstrous insect, not quite straight as if built around immovable natural features. Swooping a littie closer, she could see these features were gently steaming rock pools and delicate water-falls none but a fool would destroy.

To the right, one massive structure dominated. She moved slowly over it, seeing courtyards and follies built into the intricate multilevel building of white stone, grey slate, dark wood and an extra-‹ ›rdinary abundance of flowers as if the Gods had sprinkled them from the heavens. A gorgeous confusion of reds, yellows, blues and purples, strung with emerald green, every pigment strong and pure.

But the real majesty was to the rear of the orchard and it dwarfed t he rest of the house. Cut into steps up the shallow incline to the peak of the hill were terrace after terrace of arches, statues, pillars, domed roofs as of small temples, grottos, pools, intricate rock gardens and perfectly formed trees. And on the peak itself, a stone needle, thirty feet high and six across its base, pointing to the sky, swarming with ivy, covered with weathered carvings and exuding a deep and ancient aura of mage power.

Erienne flew lower, extending her wings for a long slow glide

across the extraordinary architectural and cultural diversity of what she saw. Approaching, she looked for a likely landing place, already imagining herself walking in the tranquillity, lost from herself and everyone for a few precious moments. But as she neared, the air chilled and she retreated upwards, feeling all at once like a trespasser in the past.

She wasn't flying over the fanciful notions of artists brought to fruition, she was flying over graves. One, surely, for every Al-Drechar that had lived to dream of the reunification of the colleges and died, unfulfilled and fearful of the end of all in which they believed.

To land now would be to desecrate the memories. First, she had to carry through her mission, despite her burgeoning misgivings. She flew a little higher and tried to make sense of it all.

Lyanna's training had performed an almost instant change on her, exacdy as Erienne had feared. Gone was the carefree spirit that sang nonsense songs to her doll, to be replaced by a considered, almost introverted, quiet. And though she would still talk, Erienne could see there was more than just the thoughts of a child behind her eyes. It was as if she were assimilating everything she saw, felt and heard; and presumably it was the same on the mana spectra.

Erienne was at once scared of what her daughter would become, proud that she was the future of the One Way and jealous of the wonders she might see.

It was all so different from her time in Dordover, where Lyanna's training, based on generations of developing the minds of infants, left her with all her innocence and gave her the gift of mana acceptance. Erienne felt yet another sweep of guilt as she rode the warm thermals above Herendeneth. She knew Lyanna's mind was suffering in Dordover and they had had to leave, but was this really any better? She still shouted out in the night, she still awoke crying from the pain in her head. There was comfort, though. Here, at least, Lyanna stood a chance of living and giving Balaia back the gift that stood on the precipice of extinction.

But she couldn't banish the worries. She'd seen the Al-Drechar leave the Whole Room and fail to disguise the anxiety in their faces. She had seen them become visibly more frail at the end of each day though the training was barely seven days old. And she had

interrupted whispered conversations that stopped too abruptly when she was noticed.

Determining to speak to Ephemere later, she rose higher, interested to see where the illusion began. She was perhaps only fifty feet from the ground when the house started to become indistinct. Like grey cloud washing across the sky, blotting out detail, the house disappeared under the enormously complex spell with every beat of the ShadowWings. At a little over sixty feet, all she could see was the top of a mist-obscured long-extinct volcano.

As she watched, the illusion flickered and steadied. She thought it a trick of her eyes until the shimmer was repeated. To her left, a roiling in the spell left a wing of the house plainly visible for several beats and closer inspection revealed light shining through illusory rock.

Erienne's heart raced and she dived for the orchard. She'd seen enough poorly maintained static spells to know the illusion was decaying towards the point of collapse.

Something was badly wrong. Surely the Al-Drechar's strength could not be so seriously impaired this soon. A failing illusion was worse than none at all, sending flares of mana whipping through the spectra. To the trained eye, they'd be like a beacon fire in the dead of night. No clearer signal would be needed. All it would take was a master mage searching the southern coasts of Balaia and out to sea.

And then Dordovcr would come in force. It would be no contest.