Chapter Thirteen

Two days later the Northland army was encamped within twenty miles of Storlock. The army had crossed the plains unhindered, angling east toward the Anar, staying clear of the entangling forests, a huge, sluggish worm inching its way steadily closer to the haven of the Dwarves. Watch fires burned in the distance against a twilight sky, a bright yellow haze that stretched for miles across the flats. Kinson Ravenlock could see the glow from as far away as the edge of the Dragon’s Teeth below the mouth of the Valley of Shale. The army would have spent the afternoon crossing the Rabb River before settling in. At sunrise it would resume its march south, which meant that by sunset tomorrow it would reach a point directly opposite the village of the Stors.

Which meant in turn, the Borderman realized, that he and Mareth must cross the Rabb tonight, ahead of the army’s advance, if they wished to avoid being trapped on the wrong side of the plains.

He stood motionless in the shadow of a cleft in the rocks some fifty feet above the plains and found himself wishing they had been able to get this far a day earlier so that a night crossing would not have been necessary. He knew that with the coming of darkness Brona’s winged hunters would be abroad, prowling the open spaces that lay between them and safety. It was not an appealing thought. He glanced back to where Mareth sat rubbing her feet in an effort to alleviate the ache of the day’s forced march, her boots dumped unceremoniously on the ground along with her cloak and their few provisions. They could not have come faster than they had, he knew. He had pushed her hard just to get this far. She was still weak from her experience in the Druid’s Keep; her stamina drained quickly and she required frequent rests. But she had not complained once, not even when he had insisted they must forgo sleep until they reached Storlock. She had great determination, he acknowledged grudgingly. He just wished he understood her a little better.

He looked back out at the plains, at the watch fires, at the darkness as it rolled out of the east and descended in gathering layers across the landscape. Tonight it was, then. He wished he had magic to hide them on their passage, but he might as well wish he could fly. He could not ask her to use hers, of course. Bremen had forbidden it. And Bremen himself was absent still, so there was no help to be found there.

“Come eat something,” Mareth called to him.

He turned and walked down out of the rocks. She had set out plates with bread, cheese, and fruit, and poured ale into metal cups. They had bartered for their provisions with a farmer above Varfleet yesterday evening, and this was the last of what they had acquired. He sat down across from her and began to eat. He did not look at her. They were two days gone from fallen Paranor, having come down out of the Kennon once more and turned east along the Mermidon, following it below the wall of the Dragon’s Teeth to here. Bremen had sent them ahead, had given them strict orders to go on without him, to follow the Mermidon to the Rabb and then cross to Storlock. There they were to inquire after a man the Druid believed was living somewhere within the Eastland wilderness of the Upper Anar, a man of whom Kinson had never heard. They were to determine where he might be found, and then they were to wait until Bremen could rejoin them. The Druid did not explain what it was that he would be doing in the meantime.

He did not explain why they were looking for this unknown man, He simply told them what to do — told Kinson what to do, more to the point, since Mareth was still sleeping at that juncture — and then disappeared into the trees.

Kinson believed that he had gone back into the Druid’s Keep, and the Borderman once more wondered why. They had fled Paranor in a maelstrom of sound and fury, of magic unleashed and gone wild, some of it Mareth’s and some the Keep’s itself. It was as if a beast had risen to devour them, and it had seemed to Kinson that he could feel its breath on his neck and hear the scrape of its claws as it pursued them. But they had escaped to the forests without and hidden there in night’s fading dark while the rage of the beast vented itself and died away. They had remained in the shelter of the trees all the next day and let Mareth sleep. Bremen had tended her, obviously concerned at first, but when she had come awake long enough to drink a cup of water before sleeping again, he had ceased to worry.

“Her magic is too powerful for her” was how he had explained it to Kinson. They were keeping watch over her in the latemorning hours after she had awakened and gone back to sleep again. The sun was high overhead, and the dark memory of the night before was beginning to fade. Paranor was a silent presence beyond the screen of the trees, gone as still as death, emptied of life. “It seems obvious that she came to the Druids in an effort to find a way to better understand it. I suppose she was not with them long enough to do so. Perhaps she asked to come with us believing we might help her.”

He shook his gray head. “But did you see? She summoned her magic to protect me from the creatures Brona had left to ward against my return, and instantly she lost all control! She seems unable to judge the measure of what is needed. Or perhaps judgment is not an issue at all, and what happens is that on being summoned, her magic assumes whatever form it chooses. Whatever the case, it rolls out of her like a flood! In the Druid’s Keep, it swallowed those creatures as if they were gnats. It was so powerful that it alerted the magic the Keep maintains for its own protection, the earth magic set in place by the first Druids. This was magic I tested on my return to make certain it could still guard against an attempt to destroy the Keep. I could not protect the Druids from the Warlock Lord, but I could ward Paranor. Mareth’s magic was so pervasive in its destruction of Brona’s creatures that it suggested that the Keep itself was in danger and thereby conjured forth the earth magic as well.”

“Hers is innate magic, you once said,” Kinson mused. “Where would it have come from to be so strong?”

The old man pursed his lips. “Another Druid, perhaps. An Elf who carries the old magic in his blood. A faerie creature, survived from the old world. It could be any of those.” He arched one eyebrow quizzically. “I wonder if even she knows the answer.”

“I wonder if she would tell us if she did” was Kinson’s reply.

Thus far, she had barely spoken of it. By the time she came awake, Bremen had gone. It was left to Kinson to advise her that she was not to use her magic again until Bremen had returned and counseled her. She accepted the edict with little more than a nod.

She said nothing of what had happened in the Keep. She seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely.

He finished his meal and looked up again. She was watching him.

“What are you thinking?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I was wondering about the man we are sent to find. I was wondering why Bremen considers him so important.”

She nodded slowly. “Cogline.”

“Do you know the name?”

She did not respond. She seemed not to have heard.

“Perhaps one of your friends at Storlock will be able to help us.”

Her eyes went flat. “I have no friends at Storlock.”

For a moment he simply stared at her, uncomprehending. “But I thought you told Bremen ...”

“I lied.” She took a breath and her gaze fell away from his. “I lied to him, and I lied to everyone at Paranor before him. It was the only way I could gain acceptance. I was desperate to study with the Druids, and I knew they would not let me if I did not give them a reason. So I told them I had studied with the Stors. I gave them written documents to support the claim, all false. I deliberately misled them.” Her gaze lifted. “But I would like to stop lying now and tell the truth.”

The darkness was complete about them, the last of the daylight faded, and they sat cloaked within it, barely able to make each other out. Because they would cross the Rabb that night, Kinson had not bothered with a fire. Now he wished he had so that he could better see her face.

“I think,” he said slowly, “that this might be a good time for the truth. But how am I to know if what you tell me is the truth or simply another lie?”

She smiled faintly, sadly. “You will know.”

He held her gaze. “The lies were because of your magic, weren’t they?” he guessed.

“You are perceptive, Kinson Ravenlock,” she told him. “I like you for that. Yes, the lies were made necessary because of my magic. I am desperate to find a way to...” She hesitated, searching for the right word. ‘To live with myself. I have struggled with my power for too long, and I am growing weary and despairing. I have thought at times that I would end my life because of what it has done to me.”

She paused, looking off into the dark. “I have had the magic since birth. Innate magic, as I told Bremen. That much was the truth. I never knew my father. My mother died giving birth to me. I was raised by people I did not know. If I had relatives, they never revealed themselves. The people who raised me did so for reasons that I have never understood. They were hard, taciturn people, and they told me little. I think there was a sense of obligation, but they never explained it’s source. I was gone from them by the time I was twelve, apprenticed to a potter, sent to his shop to fetch and haul materials, to clean up, to observe if I wished, but mostly to do what I was told. I had the magic, of course, but like myself it had not yet matured and was still just a vague presence that manifested itself only in small ways.

“As I grew to womanhood, the magic blossomed within me. One day the potter tried to beat me, and I defended myself out of instinct, calling on the magic for protection. I nearly killed him. I left then, and went out into the border country to find a new place to live. For a time, I lived in Varfleet.“ Her smile returned. ”Perhaps we even crossed paths once upon a time. Or were you already gone? Gone, I suppose.“ She shrugged. ”I was attacked again a year later. There were several men this time, and they had more in mind than a beating. I called up the magic again. I could not control it. I killed two of them. I left Varfleet and went east.”

Her smile turned mocking and bitter. “You see a pattern to all this, I imagine. I began to believe I could live with no one because I could not trust myself. I drifted from community to community, from farm to farm, earning my way however I could. It was a useful time. I discovered new things about my magic. It was not merely destructive; it was also restorative. I was empathic, I found. I could apply the magic and bring healing to those who were injured. I discovered this by accident when a man I knew and liked was injured and in danger of dying from a fall. It was a revelation that gave me hope. The magic used in this way was controllable. I could not understand why, but it seemed governable when called upon to heal and not to destroy. Perhaps anger is inherently less manageable than sympathy. I don’t know.

“In any case, I went to live with the Stors, to ask to be allowed to study with them, to learn to use my skills. But they did not know me and would not accept me into their order. They are Gnomes, and no member of another race has ever been allowed to study with them. They refused to make an exception for me. I tried for months to persuade them otherwise, staying in their village, watching them at their work, taking meals with them when they would let me, asking for a chance and nothing more.

“Then one day a man came down out of the wilderness to visit with the Stors. He wanted something from them, something of their lore, and they did not seem concerned in the least about giving it to him. I marveled. After months of begging for scraps, I had been given nothing. Now this man appears out of nowhere, a Southlander, not a Gnome, and the Stors can’t wait to help him. I decided to ask him why.”

She scuffed her boot against the earth as if digging at the past.

“He was strange-looking, tall and thin, all angles and bones, pinch-faced and wild-haired. He seemed constantly distracted by his thoughts, as if it were the most difficult thing in the world to hold a simple conversation. But I made him speak with me. I made him listen to my story. It became clear as I went along that he understood a great deal about magic. So I told him everything. I confided in him. I don’t know why to this day, but I did. He told me the Stors would not have me, that there was no point in remaining in the village. Go to Paranor and the Druids, he suggested. I laughed. They would not have me either, I pointed out. But he said they would. He told me what to tell them. He helped me make up a story and he wrote the papers that would gain me acceptance. He said he knew something of the Druids, that he had been a Druid once, long ago. I was not to mention his name, though. He was not held in favor, he said.

“I asked his name then, and he told it to me. Cogline. He told me that the Druids were no longer what they once were. He told me that with the exception of Bremen they did not go out into the Four Lands as they once had. They would accept the story he had provided for me if I could demonstrate my healing talents. They would not bother to check further on me because they were trusting to a fault. He was right. I did as he told me, and the Druids took me in.”

She sighed. “But you see why I asked Bremen to take me with him, don’t you? The study of magic is not encouraged at Paranor, not in any meaningful way. Only a few, like Risca and Tay, have any real understanding of it. I was given no chance to discover how to control my own. If I had revealed its presence, I would have been sent away at once. The Druids are afraid of the magic. Were afraid rather, for now they are all gone.”

“Has your magic grown more powerful?” he asked as she paused. “Has it become more uncontrollable? Was it so when you called it up within the Keep?”

“Yes.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line, and there were sudden tears in her eyes. “You saw. It overwhelmed me completely. It was like a flood threatening to drown me. I could not breathe!”

“And so you look to Bremen to help you find a way to master it, the one Druid who might have an understanding of its power.”

She looked directly at him. “I do not apologize for what I have done.”

He gave her a long look. “I never thought for a minute that you would. Nor do I propose to judge you for your choice. I have not lived your life. But I think the lies should end here. I think you should tell to Bremen when we see him next what you have told to me. If you expect his help, you should at least be honest with him.”

She nodded, wiping irritably at her eyes. “I intend that,” she said. She looked small and vulnerable, but her voice was hard. She would give up nothing further of herself, he realized. She must have agonized over telling him as much as she had.

“I can be trusted,” she said suddenly, as if reading his mind.

“With everything but your magic,” he amended.

“No. Even with that. I can be trusted not to use it until Bremen tells me to.”

He studied her wordlessly for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.” He was thinking suddenly, unexpectedly, that they were much alike. Both had traveled far to leave the past behind, and for neither was the journey finished. Both had bound themselves to Bremen, their lives inextricably intertwined with his, and neither could envision now that there had ever been any other choice.

He glanced at the sky and climbed to his feet. “Time for us to be on our way.”

They blackened their faces and hands, tied down their metal implements and weapons so they would not clink, went down from their hiding place in the rocks, and set out across the Rabb.

The night air was cool and soft, a small breeze blowing out of the foothills and carrying with it the scents of sage and cedar. Clouds drifted overhead, screening away the half-moon and stars so that their light was diffused and they appeared only in brief glimpses.

Sound traveled far on such a night, so Kinson and Mareth walked softly, carefully in the tall grasses, avoiding the loose rock that might betray their presence. North, the light of the encamped army was a blaze of smoky saffron against the dark, stretched between the Dragon’s Teeth west and the Anar east. Every so often Kinson would stop and listen, picking out the sounds that belonged, wary of those that didn’t. Mareth followed a step behind and did not speak. Kinson could feel her there without having to look, a shadow at his back.

The hours passed, and the plains stretched away about them, lengthening as they crossed so that for a time it appeared they were making no headway. Kinson kept watch over the clouded skies, wary of the winged hunters that would be prowling the night. He kept watch out of habit and not because he expected to see the dark ones. He had learned from experience that he would feel them first, and when he did he must hide at once, for if he waited until he saw them it would be too late. But the unpleasant tingling, the rush of chilling trepidation, the warning of something untoward did not come, and with Mareth following dutifully, he pressed on.

They stopped once to drink from their aleskins, crouching down in a twisting gully choked with brush, sitting close together in the dark. Kinson found himself wondering what it must have been like for her, bereft of family and friends, made outcast by her magic, left homeless by circumstance and choice alike. She showed courage, he thought, in persevering, in not giving up when it would have been easy for her to do so. Nor had she compromised herself or others in choosing her path. He wondered how much of this Bremen had deduced in making his decision to allow her to accompany them. He wondered how well Mareth had succeeded in deceiving the old man. Not so well as she thought, he suspected. He knew from experience that Bremen could look inside you as if you were made of glass and see all the working parts. That was one reason he had managed to stay alive all these years.

Sometime after midnight one of the Skull Bearers crossed their path. He came out of the east, from the direction in which they were proceeding, surprising Kinson, who was thinking any danger would come from the north. He sensed the creature and went down on his face in a patch of brush immediately, dragging Mareth after him. He could tell from the look on her face that she knew what was happening. He pulled her close against him, deep within the concealment.

“Do not look up,” he whispered. “Do not even think of what flies above us. It will sense us if you do.”

They lay against the earth as the creature flew closer and the fear within them grew until it rushed through them like the sun’s heat at midday. Kinson forced himself to breathe normally and to think of days gone when he was a boy hunting with his brothers.

He held himself quiet, his body still, his muscles relaxed, his eyes closed. Pressed against him, Mareth matched his breathing and his poise. The Skull Bearer passed overhead, circling. Kinson could feel it, knowing how close it was from experience, from his days spent scouting in the Northland, when the winged hunters had scoured the land in which he traveled every night. Bremen had taught him how to avoid them, how to survive. The feelings the monsters generated could not be avoided, but they could be endured. The feelings alone, after all, could not cause harm.

Mareth understood. She did not shift or tremble within the crook of his arm. She did not attempt to rise or bolt from their hiding place. She lay as he did, patient and determined.

At last the Skull Bearer flew on, moving to another part of the plains, leaving them shaken, but relieved. It was always like this, Kinson thought, climbing to his feet. He hated the feeling, hated the shame it generated within him to have to cower so, to have to hide. But he would have hated dying more.

He gave Mareth a reassuring smile, and they walked on into the night.

They reached Storlock just before dawn, wet and bedraggled from a sudden shower that had caught them only a mile or so from the village. Sad-faced and deferential, the white-robed Stors came out to meet them and take them inside. Hardly a word was spoken; words did not seem necessary. The Stors appeared to recognize them both and asked no questions. It was possible they were remembered from before, Kinson thought as he was led in out of the weather. Mareth had lived among the Stors, and he had visited them on several occasions with Bremen. In any case, it made things simpler. Though typically aloof and preoccupied, the Stors were generous with both food and shelter. As if they had been expecting their guests all along, the Stors provided hot soup, dry clothes, and beds in guest rooms in the main building. Within an hour of their arrival, Kinson and Mareth were asleep.

When they woke, it was late afternoon. The rain had stopped, so they stepped outside to look around. The village was quiet, and the surrounding forest felt empty of life. As they walked the roadways from one end to the other, Stors passed wraithlike and silent in pursuit of their tasks, barely looking up at the strangers. No one approached them. No one spoke. They visited several of the hospitals where the Healers were at work on the people who had come to them from various parts of the Four Lands. No one seemed concerned that they were there. No one asked them to leave. While Mareth stopped to play with a pair of small Gnome children who had been burned in a cooking accident, Kinson walked outside and stood looking off into the darkening trees, thinking of the dangers posed by the approach of the Northland army.

At dinner, he told Mareth of his concern. The army would have reached a point on the Rabb close to where the village lay. If there was a need for food or supplies, as there almost always was, scouts would be sent to forage and Storlock would be in real danger.

Most knew of the Stors and the work they did, and they respected their privacy. But Brona’s army would be held to a different code of conduct, a different set of rules, and the protections normally afforded the village would likely be absent. What would become of the Stors if one of the Skull Bearers came prowling? The Healers had no means of protecting themselves; they knew nothing of fighting. They relied solely on their neutrality and disinterest in politics to keep them safe. But where the winged hunters were concerned, was that enough?

While mulling this dilemma over, they asked after Cogline and discovered almost immediately where he could be found. It seemed not to be any great secret. Cogline kept in regular contact with the Stors, preferring to deal with them to obtain what he needed as opposed to the trading posts that dotted the fringes of the wilderness into which he had retreated. The once-Druid had made his home deep within the Anar, in the seldom traversed tangle of Darklin Reach at a place called Hearthstone. Even Kinson had never heard of Hearthstone, though he knew of Darklin Reach and regarded it as a place to be avoided. Spider Gnomes lived there, wiry, barely human creatures so wild and primitive they communed with spirits and sacrificed to old gods.

Darklin Reach was a world frozen in time, unchanged since the advent of the Great Wars, and Kinson was not pleased to learn that they would probably have to travel there.

After dinner was completed and the Stors had drifted back to whatever work commanded their attention, the Borderman sat with the girl on a hard-backed bench on the dining-hall porch and looked out at the gathering gloom. His thoughts were distracting to him. Bremen had not appeared. Perhaps he was still at Paranor.

Perhaps he was trapped on the other side of the Rabb, with the Northland army settled between them. Kinson did not like the uncertainty of it. He did not like being forced to await the Druid’s arrival, kept idle when he would rather be active. He could wait when it was necessary, but he questioned the reason for waiting now. It seemed to him that Bremen should have sent him on ahead to look for Cogline, even if it meant going into Darklin Reach. It felt to him as if time was slipping away from them all.

A line of Stors appeared from the hall, cloaked and hooded, withdrawn and secretive. They went down the porch steps and across the roadway to another building, their white forms slowly fading into the gray haze of twilight, ghosts in the night. Kinson wondered at their single-mindedness, at the peculiar mix of dedication to work and obliviousness to the world beyond their tiny village. He glanced at Mareth, trying to picture her as one of them, wondering if she still wished she had been accepted into their order. Would the isolation better agree with her, beset by the dictates of her magic’s use, by the threat of its escape? Would she feel less constrained here than at Paranor? The puzzle of her life intrigued him, and he found himself thinking of her in ways he had never thought of anyone else.

He slept poorly that night, plagued by dreams rife with faceless, threatening creatures. When he came awake shortly before dawn, he was on his feet and had his sword in hand almost before he realized what he was doing. There were voices without, harsh and guttural, and he could hear the ring and scrape of armor. He knew at once what had happened. Leaving his boots behind, taking only his sword, he eased from his bedroom and slipped down the hallway to the front entry where a bank of windows opened onto the main street. Keeping to the shadows, he peered out.

A large Troll raiding party had appeared in the roadway and was facing a small cluster of Stors who stood on the steps of the main healing center across the way. The Trolls were armed and threatening; their gestures made it clear that they intended to go inside. The Stors were not opposing them in an overt manner, but neither were they giving way. The angry voices belonged to the Trolls; the Stors were silent and stoic in the face of the intruders’ threats. Kinson could not tell what the Trolls wanted — whether it was food and supplies or something more. But he could tell that the Trolls were not going to give up on their demands. They understood as clearly as he did that there was no one in the village to oppose them.

Kinson stared from darkened building to shadowed walkway, from heavy forest to open road, and considered his options. He could stay where he was and hope that nothing happened. If he did that, he was condemning the Stors to whatever fate the Trolls decided upon. He could attack the Trolls from the rear and probably kill as many as four or five before the rest overpowered him. Not much would be accomplished with that. Once he was killed, as he surely would be, the Trolls would be free to do as they chose with the Stors anyway. He could try a diversion. But there was nothing to guarantee that he would draw all of the Trolls away from the village or that they would not return later.

He thought suddenly of Mareth. She had the power to save these people. Her magic was powerful enough to incinerate the entire Troll raiding party before even one could blink. But Mareth was forbidden to use her magic, and without her magic she was as vulnerable as the Stors.

Across the way, one of the Trolls had begun to climb the steps onto the porch, his huge pike lowered menacingly. The Stors waited for him, white-robed sheep in the path of a wolf. Kinson gripped his sword tighter and moved to the front door, easing it carefully open. Whatever he was going to do, he was going to have to do it quickly.

He was ready to step out from the shadows of the doorway when a shriek arose from the midst of the beleaguered Stors.

Someone pushed through them from out of the building they warded, a shambling, half-clothed figure that tottered and nailed as if beset by a form of madness. Rags trailed from the figure, the bindings for wounds that now lay open and weeping. The creature’s face was ravaged by sores and lesions, the body made frail by a wasting disease that had left the bones taut against the mottled and withered skin.

The figure stumbled from the midst of the Stors to the edge of the porch, wailing in despair. The Trolls brought up their weapons guardedly, the foremost falling back a step in shock.

“Plague!” the ravaged creature howled, the word rising up in the silence, harsh and terrible. A swarm of insects rose off the creature’s back, buzzing madly. “Plague, plague everywhere! Flee! Flee!”

The creature swayed and dropped to its knees. Bits of flesh fell from it, and blood dripped from its open wounds onto me wooden steps, steaming in the cool night air. Kinson winced in horror. The disease was causing it quite literally to fall apart!

It was all too much for the Trolls. Soldiers to the core, they were brave in the face of enemies they could see, but as terrified of the invisible as the meekest shopkeeper. They fell back in disarray, trying not to show fear, but determined not to stay another moment in close proximity to the disaster that had collapsed on the steps before them. Their leader waved off the Stors and their village in a gesture of anxious defiance, and the entire patrol hurried back down the roadway in the direction of the Rabb and disappeared into the trees.

When they were gone, Kinson stepped into the light, sword lowering as the pulse of his body slowed and the heat of his blood cooled. He looked back at the Stors across the way, finding them clustered about the strange apparition, heedless of the disease that ravaged it. Forcing himself to ignore his own fear, he crossed to see if he could be of help.

On reaching them, he found Mareth standing in their midst.

“I broke my promise,” she said, her large dark eyes anxious, her smooth face troubled. “I’m sorry, but I could not stand by and see them harmed.”

“You used your magic,” he guessed, amazed.

“Just a little. Just that part that goes into the healing, the part I use as an empath. I can reverse it to make what is well appear sick.”

“Appear?”

“Well, mostly.” She hesitated. He could see the weariness now, the dark circles about her eyes, the lines of fading pain etched at the comers of her mouth. Sweat beaded her forehead. Her fingers were crooked and rigid. “You understand, Kinson. It was necessary.”

“And dangerous,” he added.

Her eyelids fluttered. She was on the verge of a real collapse. “I am all right now. I just need to sleep. Can you help me walk?”

He shook his head in dismay, picked her up without a word, and carried her back to her room.

The following day, the Northland army decamped and moved south. One day later, Bremen appeared. Mareth had recovered from the effects of her magic and looked strong and well again, but Bremen appeared to have taken her place. He was haggard and worn, dust-covered and spattered with mud, and clearly angered.

He ate, bathed, dressed in fresh clothing, and then told them what had kept him. After making certain that the magic that warded the Druid’s Keep was returned to its safehold and that the Keep was intact, he had gone once more to the Hadeshorn to speak with the spirits of the dead. He was hoping that he might learn more of the visions he had been shown on his last visit, that something further might be revealed to him. But the spirits would not speak, would not even appear, and the waters of the lake rose up in such fury at his summons that they threatened to inundate him, to drag him down into their depths for the audacity of his intrusion. His voice took on an edge as he described his treatment. He had been given all the help he was going to get, it appeared. Their fate, from here forward, was largely in their own hands.

On being asked of Cogline, he demurred. Time enough for that later. For now, they would have to be patient and let an old man catch up on his sleep.

Kinson and Mareth knew better than to argue. A few days of rest were clearly necessary to restore the old man’s strength.

But before the sun had risen the following day, the Druid collected them from their beds and in the deep, predawn silence took them out of the still sleeping village of the Stors toward Darklin Reach.