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Chapter Four

Fly on spirit, fly on, and stare not into Twilight's awful eye lest it stare deep into you.


—The Book Of Iron And Sky



Through the mountainous night Suviel fled her pursuers, three Acolyte guards who managed to keep track of her whatever ruse she employed. Up rocky slopes, along narrow gullies just wide enough to lead her horse, and across fast-running streams but all to no avail. On they came.

Her limbs were tired and her back ached from the ride, but her head was clear. She began to wonder if the rumours were true, that the Acolyte guards were creatures of the hunt – dogs, wolves and others - warped by the Wellsource into human shape. They could not be following the odour trail left by her or her horse since she had masked both with the Lesser Power. Perhaps it was the Lesser Power itself that drew them after her. Or perhaps she was deluding herself about what she could actually achieve anymore. For while the Lesser Power was a fundamental quality of the world, like rain or grass or insects, it was a sweet valley breeze compared to the raging gale of the Wellsource, ripples on a pond to a mighty ocean wave. Straws for a drowning unfortunate to grasp.

Suviel sighed and shook her head, trying to dispel her dismal frame of mind. After all, the Wellsource was the Lord of Twilight's power, intrinsically poisonous and corruptive while the Lesser Power was, among other things, a fount of gentle healing that could never taint the user. It was something worth fighting for, and with.

A watery dawn was breaking through broken clouds as she topped the crest of a ridge. Below, the trail led down into a marshy, wooded vale still hazed by lingering veils of mist. She urged her mount into a canter then slowed when she entered the shadow of the trees. The faint sounds of frogs and insect were all around. The trail led among clumps of reeds and grassy hummocks and soon she came to a place where the trail narrowed to a thin strip of solid ground meandering through the mire. She slowed to a halt and sat listening, then nodded to herself. A dozen paces further on, past a huge, tangled heskel bush, she secured her horse to a tree and walked back to stand at the spot she had found.

Suviel forced calmness upon herself and let the Lesser Power fill her as she swiftly but carefully brought two cantos together in her mind, 'Beckoning' and 'Constraint'. The frogs and insects fell silent, but another sound reached her ears, the drumming of hooves. Confident that all was ready, she retreated to behind the heskel bush, holding tight in her circling thoughts the tether of the spell she'd made.

She did not have to wait long. The three Acolyte guards rode into view, galloping along in single file. She kept the spell in check until the first rider was just coming to the narrow strip of ground, then released it. The mire on either side rustled suddenly and scores of long wriggling shapes surged out to attack. The first horse whinnied in panic, reared as the snakes struck at its legs and threw its rider. Landing, the guard cried out, a high snarling sound, then leaped to his feet covered in writhing snakes. He tried to run, tearing them from his neck and struggling to pull off his leather harness to get at the ones burrowing beneath it. Then he uttered a single shriek and fell in the mud, convulsing for a few seconds before finally lying still.

The other two riders had wheeled away from the trap. They backed off and stared impassively. Suviel watched with a grim satisfaction, but frowned as they looked at each other for several silent moments. Then in unison they turned their mounts about and rode back up the trail. Suviel sighed, hurried along to her own horse, climbed into the saddle and left the marshy vale at a canter.

She followed the track on through the mountains, keeping to the cover of trees and shadowy gullies, scrutinising the surroundings before riding across any open ground. She knew it would not be long before the guards picked up her trail again. There was a place she had to reach, a deep, narrow gorge spanned by a huge fallen tree. Across the other side was an easier, more direct trail back to Krusivel. She just hoped that in the half-decade since she was last there, no-one had taken it into their mind to destroy it.

The morning steadily brightened and although great rafts of threatening cloud passed overhead, the rain held off. Yet Suviel felt no warmth as she passed along defiles and passes which had never been touched by the sun's rays and where tough, spiny bushes grew.

As she rode she noticed the crumbling remains of buildings, even the collapsed, pillared entrance of a temple worked into a cliff half-way up its face. She could just make out the weathered contours of steps leading up the sheer rock, impossible to scale. These were age-old ruins, decrepit fragments of some ancient kingdom from the semi-legendary Age of Wars, whose name was lost in the fog of years. She grimaced - in another three thousand years who would even remember the name of Khatrimantine?

If we fail, no-one.

The path, little more than an old goat trail, led across a steep hillside, through patches of gorse and mistwrack till it dipped to join the rocky bed of a dried-up stream. Here she dismounted and continued, eyes glancing to either side, ears alert to the faintest disturbance. Except for the sound of some small creature scratching in the undergrowth, all was peace, a soothing tranquility, but she had long since learned to distrust the quiet. For a moment she yearned for the safety of Krusivel, the hidden refuge in Kejana, then she quelled it. Too much danger lay ahead for futile longing.

On either side trees leaned over, branches intertwining above her in a dense arch of leaf and bough that fitered the morning's sombre light to a shadowy dimness. After a while the cover thinned and she followed a barely distinguishable path up a grassy bank, pausing at the crest to take in the sight. Uneven ground sloped down, widening towards the edge of a wide chasm, a dark crack in the world. Steep mountain flanks rose on both sides, daunting walls of wind-scoured stone broken by patches of dark green and grey where notches trapped moisture and gave meagre shelter to weeds and bines. A few stunted bushes grew along the edge of the rocky incline and down near the dried-up stream. Only one tree had ever grown here, a giant agathon, once rooted near the brink of the chasm till some storm toppled it across the divide. Down the centuries travellers and merchants' artificers had worked on it and added to it until the great tree became a true bridge with a high-sided channel wide enough for wagons hewn along its length, and cobbled ramps at either end.

Suviel looked warily about her. Several paths and gully brooks met here, making it the perfect place for an ambush. She wished she could mount up and ride quickly down to the bridge, but her horse was near exhaustion and might stumble on the uneven slope. So she wound the traces once about her left hand and started down to the chasm.

There was a glow of sunlight from high, high above, but rags of mist hung stubbornly in this rift between the mountains. Suviel glanced from side to side, eyes missing no detail of foliage or shadow, imagination filling her with fearful images of those beast guards coming for her with whips and chains, or the Acolyte priest waiting to sear her with foul sorcery…

Her horse noticed the Acolyte guard first. As it tugged at the traces, Suviel heard a flicking sound and the animal whinnied and reared. Suviel released the reins and staggered away from the panicking horse, just as a leather-masked guard emerged from the bushes. From somewhere behind her came the sound of an approaching rider, and when the guard lunged towards her without drawing a weapon she knew they wanted her alive.

There was no time to plan. She took a step back as the guard reached her and grabbed handfulls of her cloak and jerkin. Beneath the mask a slit mouth grinned and she caught the stench of his breath in her nostrils. She bunched the knuckles of her right hand together just as she had been taught, and when the guard made to throw her on the ground she hammered her fist into his unprotected armpit. He grunted in pain and bent double, one hand going reflexively to his side. Suviel brought her knee up to connect with his chin and he went down like a sack of vegetables. Then she turned and ran. Suviel was almost at the bridge when the mounted guard rode up to her, trying to strike her with the flat of his sword. She ducked the blow but was knocked off her feet by the horse's hindquarters. Scrambling upright, she found herself being herded away from the tree-bridge by the rider who transferred the reins to his sword hand and fumbled in a saddlebag. Suviel saw him draw out the corner of a dirty trapnet and dived to the side. She heard him bark several angry syllables, and she managed almost a dozen running paces before a booted foot caught her between the shoulderblades and she sprawled, hands outstretched to break her fall. Panic seized her. She rolled clear of the horse's hooves, scrambled away on hands and knees, expecting any second a weighted mesh to land on her and tangle her limbs.

Instead she heard the clash of steel on steel and turned to see the Acolyte guard trading blows with a second rider, a lean-faced woman in quilted leather armour. A short distance away was an another on horseback, a man sitting slumped over in the saddle. The mounted guard tried to tangle the newcomer in his trapnet, but she released her reins and snatched the weighted mesh out of the air. She then swung it once about her head, leaned closer and lashed out at her enemy's sword-arm, entangling it. Then hauled on it while making a single, deadly thrust with her own blade into his throat. She wrenched her bloody weapon free as the guard slid off his horse and landed heavily, choking his life out on the ground. Panting, the warrior turned her attention to Suviel, taking in her manner of dress and age in a moment. "You're a herbwoman, yes?" Silent, Suviel nodded.

"Good. My friend is...very badly wounded. You must help him. Get your horse and come with me."

"Who are you - "

"In the Mother's name, there isn't time for this!" the woman snapped. "There's a pack of killers chasing us, and they are not far behind. We must get across the chasm so get your mount - now."

Suviel stared at the bloody sword's point which hovered inches away from her face. "I'll do what I can," she said levelly, looking the woman straight in the eye. The warrior bit her lip, and the sword lowered. Suviel nodded and hurried over to where her horse stood cropping the meagre grass. Astride the saddle, she followed the warrior and her companion across the great tree-bridge. The man, a youth, really, was semi-conscious, his eyes hardly open, his right hand limply holding the reins while the entire left arm was hidden beneath his cloak.

Once they were on the other side, the warrior dismounted and unlashed a wood axe and a long hammer.

"Here," she said, handing Suviel the hammer. "We'll have to wreck the bridge - it's our only chance."

"Chance? What do you mean?"

The woman gave her a hard look, but there was something hunted at the back of it. "The ones following after us are without pity, and would see us both killed slowly – after they had taken every pleasure they could imagine."

Without another word the woman turned to the treebridge and chopped at the ground near the brink while Suviel tried to find good leverage places. The hammer was a use-blackened, slightly curved piece of seasoned torwood the length of her arm with a battered, gouged wedge of iron for a head, but it soon became clear that the bridge's weight was more than a match for it and her. Then she heard the woman curse, and looked up. A large group of riders, thirty or more, had appeared round a mountain track on the other side and were heading down the slope towards the bridge.

The female warrior spat an oath and in frustration hacked a chunk of wood out of the bridge which had stubbornly refused to shift.

"Come on," she said to Suviel. "We'll have to ride..."

Suviel could hear the exhaustion in her voice, as well as the rage that drove her. Faint pain-filled murmurs came from the youth who was over by the horses, head lolling weakly as he lay on his side. Two desperate fugitives, a female soldier and a wounded man. Without quite believing it, Suviel knew what she was going to do, what she had to do. It's rank folly to use the Lesser Power openly, she thought. I could be risking everything. Yet I can't walk away from these two...

"I'll take care of the bridge," she said. "You stay back there with your friend."

The woman shook her head. "...in the Mother's name..." she muttered before reaching out to grab Suviel. "Just come along, before we all get..."

Suviel caught the outstretched arm and pulled the warrior off-balance, pushing her onto her back.

"Tend to your friend, and leave this to me."

The woman gave her a look of fury mingled with a new respect. Then she glanced at the approaching danger, came easily to her feet and loped over to the youth. Suviel turned to face the oncoming riders and coaxed forth her inner serenity, a soothing of panic, a hush in the turmoil. Almost unbidden, the Lesser Power rose to fill the calm void she had made, a sweet richness of potential which she could shape to her needs.

Quickly she envisioned the thought-canto of Cadence. As it began to coil and grow, she could feel wavelets of sound radiating from her, touching the ground, the tree-bridge, and reflecting back to her. Suddenly, she was intensely aware of the soil beneath her feet, its moist grains of earth and stones and the roots of grass and plants, a dense layer that thinned away towards the edge of the chasm. She focussed the transformed Lesser Power on the brink where the treebridge rested, letting the ripples of sound sink into the solid rock, finding the exact pitch, the exact intensity at which the rock began to sing.

The galloping riders were moments from reaching the bridge when there was a brittle cracking sound. Suviel stepped back as the nearby lip of the chasm crumbled. The treebridge dropped a foot or two then, with a deep groan, it slipped off the edge, swinging down to strike the opposite face of the chasm with a shattering crash. For a second it hung there before its immense weight tore it free from the other side and sent it tumbling in a cascade of soil and rock into the depths.

On the other side most of the riders were fighting to control their panicking horses apart from one, a tall burly man, who dismounted and uttered a wordless bellow of rage. Then to Suviel' dismay, she saw the air around him shimmer as he stretched out one cupped hand which was suddenly filled with flame. He drew back his arm and hurled the fire, not at Suviel but at her warrior companion. In an instant Suviel redirected the Lesser Power's focus and the fireball burst against the shield she had made, tendrils and sparks of flame falling to scorch the ground.

Suviel felt her limbs tremble with the strain but she held the barrier in anticipation of a second attack. The man did nothing, just stood staring across at them, dark eyes never blinking, fists clenched at his sides. Then he turned to the riders and beckoned, and a slender cloaked youth dismounted and went over to join him. The burly man put his hand on the youth's shoulder near the neck then turned.

"Keren!" he cried.

Confused, Suviel glanced round to see the female warrior sitting next to her wounded companion, her shoulders slumped, her eyes glazed. Across the chasm, the man held fast the youth who began to shake violently, face contorted in pain, mouth wide with silent screams as the air rippled and twisted around him.

Suviel was seized by panic and horror. This was no rogue outburst of Lesser Power, but an open display of the Wellsource. Heedless of her own safety she ran over to the woman, letting the Cadence thought-canto fade away and beginning the canto of Clarity, knowing with awful certainty that she would be too late. Suviel had just fallen to her knees when the woman's eyes showed their whites and she sprawled to one side.

"Rouse her, hedge-witch," said the man's voice. "Rouse my Keren so she may see what I have made for her."

Suviel turned in slow dread and gasped. The figure that stood swaying beside the man was different, shorter in height, altered in proportions, and had lighter hair and a smaller, rounder face. The figure was female and was identical to the warrior who lay beside her. A word came into Suviel' thoughts, a word out of dark legend - mirrorchild.

"Or perhaps you should let her sleep," he went on. "Leave her in ignorance of the doom that will find her." He gave a feral smile. "And you, hedge-witch. I will not forget you." Throat dry with fear, Suviel had to swallow before speaking: "Who are you?"

"I am Byrnak, Warlord of Honjir." His smile widened and he laughed loudly, a brutal sound that echoed from the steep mountainsides. He glanced at the woman beside him. "Perhaps I shall take a new title, eh, little hawk?" He lifted her lolling head. "Look, there's your prey. Study them well."

The woman gazed across at Suviel who shivered at that empty, void-like regard. Then those eyes moved to look at Keren, the unconscious warrior, and quivering alarm crossed the woman's features as her mouth tried to frame words.

"Hush," said Byrnak. "Be calm. That one is a creature of evil, a thief who stole my prize and my trust, and who means to steal your very soul. Hear me.." He turned her head and stared into her eyes, "...your name is Nerek and you are my handmaiden. I will teach you things that will help you exact vengeance - "

"Stop this...!" Suviel cried.

" - and retribution against those who would deny us our destinies."

With an arm round her waist, Byrnak led her back to the waiting riders, helped her onto the horse used by the youth, then mounted his own. Without a backward glance he led the band away at a gallop, heading up the track by the riverbed.

Suviel watched them ride out of sight, scarcely able to believe what she had witnessed. The creation of a mirrorchild was a violation of nature, an abomination that would have been impossible before the obliteration of the Rootpower. She had only ever heard of such a thing from her tutors, so what could Byrnak's brazen demonstration of Wellsource power mean?

Her hands were shaking. She clasped them together, knuckles whitening as she forced the turmoil of her thoughts to recede, allowing the canto of Clarity to grow in strength. Composed once more, she laid calm hands on Keren's face, massaging the temples, stroking the closed eyes.

As she worked, Keren's companion, the wounded boy, mumbled and shifted where he lay, pushing himself up on his good arm. Suviel looked at him and saw in his face a mixture of fear and exhaustion.

"Is he here?" he said in a wavering voice, and Suviel knew immediately that he meant Byrnak. "I heard him...please help me, don't let him do it again, please, oh, please..."

"It's all right," Suviel said soothingly, swallowing her pity and rage. "You're with friends. He can't get you here.We're safe." He relaxed and sank back a little. "What's your name?" she went on.

"Tauric dor-Barledh," he said hesitantly. "My father is...was the Duke of Patrein."

"That's in eastern Khatris," she said. "How did you come to be in Honjir?"

"The warlord Gizehr attacked our keep. He claimed that we were aiding another Mogaun chief, Vashad, but we weren't, we wouldn't dare. My father's priest smuggled me out before the attack began..." His voice broke and tears spilled from his eyes. "They hung the dead from the walls!...My father!..." Weeping, Tauric lay down again, face buried in the crook of his good arm. Suviel felt helpless in the presence of such sorrow and, sensing that Keren was beginning to recover, she reached out to gently stroke the boy's hair.

"In the Mother's name," Keren groaned, holding her head as she sat upright. "What did that bastard do to me?"

"Stole some of your essence," Suviel told her. "Oh, not much, just enough for his purpose." And she told Keren what Byrnak had done, and all that had happened. When she finished, the warrior looked pale and shaken.

"A mirrorchild," she muttered. "That's only a fireside tale."

"You saw Byrnak throw that fireball," Suviel said. "I assume you've never seen him do that before."

"No, I - " Keren paused, warily eyeing her. "That was clever. All right, I rode with Byrnak's warband for a few years, shared his bed, too, for a while. Does that make me untrustworthy?"

Suviel shook her head and indicated Tauric, now semi-conscious again. "You rescued him from whatever foulness was being inflicted on him. That tells me a lot about you." She regarded Keren. "It also gives me some idea of your resilience."

Keren stood up, wiped hands on her grubby tunic and massaged her neck. "So Byrnak is a mage of some kind, like you - "

"No! He's nothing like me!" Suviel said sharply. "What he did was with the aid of the Wellsource. I, however, am a student of the Lesser Power."

"I see," Keren said uncomfortably. "Well, we'd best be on our way. When Byrnak promises revenge, he's usually impatient to taste it."

"The boy Tauric really needs proper tending," Suviel said, bending closer to look at him. "But you're right - it is too dangerous for us to stay here much..."

"We still need somewhere to go," Keren went on. "Somewhere close because I don't think the lad here can stand a long ride. Our escape from Byrnak's camp just about killed him..."

Suviel was not listening. She had squatted down beside Tauric and was carefully brushing the hair away from the back of his neck with trembling hands. And there, exposed to her disbelieving eyes was a purplish-brown birthmark the size of her thumb. It resembled a wolfhawk with its swept-back wings outstretched, and the last time she had seen such a mark was sixteen years ago on the bare shoulder of the Emperor Korregan as the master of the arsenal helped him into his armour before leaving for the plateau of Arengia.

"What's wrong?" said Keren. "Is he - "

"No," Suviel said, her thoughts whirling. "No, he's just sleeping."

She stood, looking down at Tauric. How could this be? she wondered. Every member of the Imperial family, no matter how minor, had been hunted down and slaughtered by the Acolytes soon after the Mogaun invasion. Was this boy the result of an Imperial indiscretion, perhaps, sent in secret to be brought up by this Duke of Patrein? He looked to be about seventeen, so it was possible. One thing was certain - she sensed in Tauric not a spark of the mage ability that was the blood heritage of the Imperial line. Clandestine enquiries would have to be made to discover just who he was, and there was only one place in the entire continent where such questions could be asked in safety.

Suviel straightened, breathed in deeply and glanced up at the sky.

"There'll be rain soon," said Keren. She was attending to her and Tauric's horses, tightening their saddles, wiping down their flanks. "Another reason to be on our way. North of here is the Forest of Varadin - that would offer some shelter."

"We should head south," Suviel said, smiling her best wise smile when Keren frowned. "I know a place where we will be safe from Byrnak and his like."

"Really? And what is the name of this wonderful bolthole?"

"In the old tongue it was called Krusivel but you might know of it as the Redoubt."

Keren paused, eyes widening for a moment then narrowing. "Another word out of legend. I suppose the Emperor lives there, waiting to ride out and retake all his lands."

"There are no ghosts there," Suviel said. "Except the ones we carry with us." She studied Keren whose mouth was set in a bitter line as she repacked the saddlebags. "I realise that I'm asking you take a lot on faith. It must be difficult learning how to trust someone, or relearning."

Keren made no answer, buckling the bags shut with a firm grip. Then she sighed and looked Suviel straight in the eye. "Very well," she said simply. "We will go with you. But if he comes to any harm, I will kill you."

Suviel met her level gaze and nodded. "I hear what you say," she said formally. "Now, I think you and I had better lift Tauric onto his horse together."

* * *

Holding the reins of Nerek's horse with his own, Byrnak rode on at the head of his riders as they cantered along a bushy ravine. He was weary to the bone yet driven by an energy that burned in his head like cold fire and gave him strength. He sensed the uneasy looks from his men and heard their whispers, but felt contempt for their fears. What could they know of the changes he was undergoing? It was as if a mighty maelstrom had snatched him into its inexorable inward swirl and was drawing him slowly into its vast heart. They were right to be afraid, for a part of him was afraid too.

He could not help recalling the dread nightmare of the three masked riders and their groaning horses. Had he been possessed by some fragment of the Lord of Twilight back at the chasm? The things he had done...he had not paused to think of creating a ball of fire in his hand, he had merely reached for it and it had appeared. Then there was Keren's double - a calculating fury had come over him and his mind, suddenly quicksilver and pitiless, had sorted through a number of possibilities and decided upon the creation of a mirrorchild. All done with a ruthless and cruel delight, which struck joy and fear into him in equal measure.

He glanced at her swaying drowsily in her saddle, and shivered pleasurably. His thoughts seemed bigger and stronger and the world was less daunting, more willing to be altered, directed. Byrnak grinned, wanting to throw his head back howl with laughter, to dare the mountains, the sky, the day and the night to oppose him...

A horseman, one of the advance scouts, came trotting round a bend in the ravine up ahead, approached Byrnak and reined himself alongside.

"Lord, we found four men in a clearing further along. Their leader says he wishes to speak with you."

"What are they?" Byrnak said, staring into midair as he rode on.

"They dress as merchants," the scout said. "But only their leader leaves his face uncovered."

"Then let us not keep them waiting." And he urged his mount into a gallop, as did the rest of the warband.

The clearing was dim from the ancient trees that sheltered it. Above the canopy it was raining and here and there a few rivulets of water splashed on the flattened grass. As Byrnak entered the clearing he took in the strangers in a single glance: four men in cloaks over leather armour, three of them seated on a log and wearing face-concealing helms. He dismounted swiftly and walked over to the fourth, a tall, helmetless grey-hair who stood apart from the others, head bowed.

"Who are you?" Byrnak demanded.

The tall man raised his head and Byrnak had to force himself to show no reaction: the man's eyes were completely white.

"I am Obax," he said in a deep, steady voice. "I was sent by your brothers to greet you in their name."

Nightmare images filled his mind's eye, masked riders, the horses whose eyes were chalk-white orbs...Without looking away from those narrow, lined features he stretched out one hand and pointed at the man's three companions.

"And these?"

"My servants and guards."

"Since you are now under my protection, you have no further need of them." He turned to one of the company sergeants. "Kill them."

The fight was short but brutal. When it was over one of Byrnak's men was dead and another had lost a hand, but the three guards were slain, their helms torn away to reveal snouted, bestial faces. And through it all, the man calling himself Obax displayed no emotion of any kind. Byrnak ordered his men to make camp, then detailled two of his best fighters to stay with him as he dragged the unresisting Obax off into the darkening wood. Once out of sight of the clearing he turned to Obax.

"What are you? Why are you here?"

"I am honoured to be an Acolyte, a Nightbrother of the Twilight Path." The pale, milky eyes seemed to stare through him. "My duty and pleasure is to become your thrall, to carry you across the Realm of Dusk, and to show you the Great Source."

Byrnak slowly licked dry lips. "How will you do this?"

"I can show you - " Obax raised a long-fingered hand between them, " - now."

He almost stepped back but held his ground, saying to his two men; "Draw your blades and stand either side of him - if I seem to be in danger, kill him."

When they were ready, he stared at Obax for a long moment then nodded.

"Begin."

* * *

By the time they returned to the clearing, night had fallen and most of the men were asleep, blanket-wrapped forms clustered around a couple of campfires. Byrnak dismissed his guards and told Obax to help himself to whatever food was available and find a place to sleep. The Acolyte wordlessly bowed his head, went over to the nearest fire, ignored the gently-steaming pot that rested among the coals and sat on a log, pulling his cloak tightly about himself.

Byrnak walked heavily across to his tent, the only tent, stumbled past the flaps into the lamplit interior and slumped down on the end of his fur-heaped pallet. There was movement beneath the furs and the woman sat up at the other end, startled gaze fixed on him. But his eyes were still seeing the hazy regions of the Realm of Dusk, the pale forest of skeletal trees whose brittle branch ends broke into twisted shards which scurried away into the undergrowth, the two immense towers whose pillars wept ghosts, the crumbling, hollow stone colossus with its half-mouth whispering rhymes in an unintelligible tongue. There, in the Realm of Dusk, Obax took the shape of one of the deathly steeds and had carried Byrnak past all these sights and more, finally bringing him to a shattered, peakless titanic mountain and to the awesome wonder that pulsed at its core - the Wellsource.

Now, when he tried to recall its form, only fragmentary images would come to mind - was it a heart pumping iridescent flame, or a fountaining column, or a moaning whirlwind veined with lightning, or a cloudy thing of levers and crystalline planes? He did remember how it called to him, to the cold fire that blazed in his head. It had known him, and his destiny.

Byrnak became aware of the woman's unwavering stare, moved up the pallet and pulled the furs aside. She was naked, her pale-skinned, rounded form sending lust rushing through him. Then he took her, sating himself, and she made no sound. Only when he was done did she say, in a voice desperate with need: "Who am I? Please tell me - who am I?"

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