"Lady, forgive that I am so abrupt, but time presses. Have you any knowledge of what lies before us away east?" I asked.

She bowed and closed her eyes. "It is desperately hard to tell, Eldest," she said apologetically, speaking with her eyes closed. "There are so many images, so many possible ways that the future might go. But a few things are surely to come. The battle will take place on a bright day, with clouds of smoke. Vilkas rises, but whether Sun God or Death of the World I cannot say, for he knows not. Lanen crushes that which was stone." She opened her eyes, and I felt a terrible sorrow pouring from her. "Many of us will never return, Eldest," she said, her voice suddenly rough. "Far too many. Forgive me. I have seen no more."

I bowed to her, my heart weighed down as with great stones. "It is enough, Lady. Thank you."

Lanen and Varien stood together outside the ruined wall of the College, their arms about one another, waiting for me. From a distance I could not be certain where the one ended and the other began, and it struck me as a good thing. The moment Salera left, they hurried up to me.

"Do you come to bid me farewell, my friends?" I asked, surprised.

"No, Shikrar. We come to beg you, of your kindness, to bear us eastwards," said Lanen.

"Lady, I thought you both meant to remain here," I began.

"How could we disappoint the ballad-singers?" said Lanen lightheartedly, but I had known her longer than any other Gedri, and I could see the dread that wrapped her round.

"Shikrar, how should I wait here when the Black Dragon is come?" said Varien, his words full of resolve, his heart awash with fear and sorrow. "It cannot be. I will not abandon my people."

"And if you think I'm going to let him leave me here," said Lanen as they climbed into the shelter of my hands, "think again. We've been apart long enough. What if Berys should have a de-monline ready to return here? No. Together. It's the only way." I noticed that she carefully did not meet my eyes, or use true-speech.

"It is well, then, my friends. Together," I said, crouching. I spread my wings and leapt into the sky. Idai, Gyrenrikh, and Alikirikh with their charges followed close behind.

The winds were behind us, for a blessing, blowing light rain away east. The moment I reached soaring height I let out the breath I had not realised I was holding. I could not really feel those I carried, as they were so Ught, but their minds were far more open to me than I think they realised.

Varien/Akhor felt a measure of joy to be aloft once more, riding the spring wind, studying the land as it passed below him— but that joy was tainted with fear for Lanen, fear that he should have tried harder to persuade her to stay behind, fear lest we should lose and Berys rise triumphant.

Lanen s thoughts were harder to read, but I caught them when they were wrapped about her babes. She, too, feared Berys to the depths of her soul and was terribly upset and unsure of her decision. She knew that she had made it based on sheer emotion, but even as we flew I felt her resolve strengthen. She was with her husband. Whatever else might happen they would not be parted again, and that was good.

I kept to myself the visions that Salera had spoken of. It was her sorrow that most moved me, and I had the very strong impression that she had lied when she declared she had seen no more. I have to say that I did not envy the Aiala that very strange ability. I would far rather go into battle with a heart full of hope.

I found an obscure source of comfort in the fact that I was ignorant of my own future as I rode the sky, with the wind and the sun behind me, eastwards.

Following the Black Dragon.

I soon outdistanced the other three. I could not help but smile, and bespoke Gyrentikh with a small jest regarding the flying lessons I had given him so long ago. He laughed and suggested that perhaps the fact that I was half again his size with near twice his wingspan might have something to do with the matter. True enough, he did have a point.

The sun was nearly gone down in the west when my companions and I saw in the distance a great mass of the Kantrishakrim, flying slowly and wearily. I bespoke Kedra and learned they were seeking a place to land for the night, and indeed they began to descend even as we spoke. I caught a late updraft and wheeled, rising, as they all began to land upon a vast grassy plain.

"We are all desperately weary in body and in spirit, my father," Kedra said to me privately. "The strength of the Dhrenagan we cannot yet fathom—indeed, I am not certain that they yet know it themselves—but it seems that for this night at least they are willing to rest with us."

"Where is the creature?" I asked, resolutely ignoring the wash of sorrow that swept over me. Poor Treshak.

"Not far ahead. It looks neither left nor right, it has ignored us entirely. Eastwards, ever eastwards, in unbroken line. Forgive me, my father, I can do no more," he said, and I watched as the last of the small figures below went to land. The ground so far below was falling into shadow as I sped on. I sought greater height, that I might not come upon the thing in the darkness by accident. Twilight did not last so long here as on our vanished home, and the moon would not rise for many hours yet—wait! there!

Varien, Lanen, and I watched it, flying low to the ground, flapping stupidly—I wondered again that it could remain airborne. It flew like the veriest youngling, expending vastly more energy than it needed to. At the size, I had thought it must exhaust itself soon with such wild exertion—but no. We watched it as it flew and flew, in a straight line, working ten times as hard as it needed but showing no signs of weariness. I fell off a few points north, that I might not fly directly over the thing. The Raksha-stink was terrible, even so high up as I was, and I could not answer for my instincts if I came any closer. So I flew far around it, going some way north then turning back east. Now that I was not trying to keep it in sight, I fell into my normal rhythm. It was vastly easier than having to hang back at the pace of the evil thing. It was soon far behind us.

That in itself was a blessing.

"It is not alive, Shikrar, it cannot be," said Varien at last. "Nothing that breathes could fly like that. It would fall from the sky. It is a golem, it must be."

"Your thoughts echo mine. Animated by the Demonlord, given the energy to continue by who knows what obscene arrangement with Berys." As weariness overtook me I could not keep the plaintive note out of my mindvoice. "Akhor, what is there to do? It is made of molten rock! I cannot think how to defeat it."

I heard his mindvoice laugh a little. "Is this my old friend Hadreshikrar, come to despair so soon? I cannot believe it. We have only known of its existence for a few hours, my friend."

"It is no laughing matter, Akhor. You know yourself that time is short. It flies towards something with a singleness of purpose, and I expect that something is Berys. I cannot imagine what is going to happen to it when it finds him, my friend, but I would wager that things are only going to get worse for us all."

"I fear you have the right of it, Shikrar. But though it may be inanimate, you are not. How fare you?"

"I am weary, I must confess," I replied, though that was not the entire truth. I was exhausted.

"Then let us take our ease and go to land," he said. "The morrow will be time enough to pursue."

"Surely the best strategy is to get wherever it is going before it does?" I said, trying to sound as if I had the strength to fly all the night through.