"What the Hells do you think you're doing, sending for me at this time of day!" he yelled as he strode through the door of my rooms. I smiled.

"Good morning, Marik. I thought you would like to join me for breakfast," I said. "I thought we might venture to celebrate this morning."

"This is my home, Berys. In future please assume that I will seek you out if I want to talk to you, and I bloody well won't at this time of day." He threw himself into a chair and helped himself to food. He made quite a good meal of it. Very appropriate, I thought, considering.

"Have the dragons said anything of interest?" I enquired.

"Not a damn thing they couldn't have said aloud." He grinned, wolfishly. "Though one of them at least is nicely miserable. Weary at heart, it seems, poor bastard that he is." He took a savage bite of bread and butter. "So, what news of your flying friend?"

"The Demonlord is nearly upon us, I am delighted to say. He reported this morning that he neared the mountains. I expect him here within the hour."

"Well, better late than not at all," Marik said easily. "Tell me, is he going to start killing the Kantri right away, or do we have to feed him first?"

"He must be fed," I said.

"What does a creature like that eat?" he asked, draining his cup of chelan.

"People, for preference," I replied. "Specifically—you."

Marik stared at me for a moment and then laughed.

"Hells, Berys, I thought you bloody meant it!" he crowed. I smiled at him.

"Come on then, tell me," he said, brushing the crumbs from his lap. "What does it really eat? If I need to send for a cow or six, it will take a little time."

"No, Marik," I said cheerfully. "I meant what I said. It's going to eat you. Oh, perhaps not physically, that depends on what it feels like, but you are going to feed it."

"What, yet more blood?" he asked, annoyed, and entirely incapable of believing what I said to him. It was delightful. "This grows old. I'm amazed you have anything at all in your veins."

"Come into the courtyard," I replied, rising, and calling over my shoulder as I left, "I will await you."

I waited for Berys to go, waited a moment longer lest he be listening outside the door, and shpped out through the hidden door in his bedchamber.

I'm not a complete fool. I grew up here, I know every foot of this casde, and I'd had him put in these rooms for a very good reason. It's one of only three that connect to the concealed passageways between the walls. You can go practically anywhere in the place, including out. I was soon scrambling out the little concealed door and up into the mountains. Hells' teeth, he was going to feed me to that damn thing without another thought! Me!

Bastard. He'd pay for that in time, but first I had to get a very long way away.

A voice rang in my head.

"It comes! Rise up, my people!"

I cursed and hurried on. Stop bloody posturing and get on with it, I thought wildly. Bloody dragons! If you'd just damn well kill the thing I may live to see another day.

"Bloody hellsfire! Marik?"

What the—somebody heard me?

We rose just after dawn, not that anyone slept much, and broke our fast together. Shikrar and Idai took wing to see that all was prepared, and Maran announced that she was going over to the waterfall to have a quick word with the Lady and if anyone wanted to join her they'd be welcome. Vilkas and Aral wandered along, and after a moment so did I.

We said little, each in the privacy of our own minds addressing the Goddess. Being so near a waterfall, of course, the Laughing Girl of the Waters was uppermost in my mind. It seemed odd, addressing so weighty a subject as battle to the lightness of Mother Shia, but somehow it cheered me. If the Mother of us All had sent us the Laughing Girl, perhaps it was to remind us of hope. That's how I chose to think of it, in any case.

Aral was deeply moved, kneeling, her hands cradling the leather bag around her throat that held the soulgem of some lost Kantri, and her corona surrounded her for a moment as she prayed. To my surprise, her power was no longer plain blue; it was still bright and clear, but there was a depth of colour that suggested purple. I had seen corrupted Healer's power. This seemed the opposite.

My mother Maran seemed to have a very rough and ready approach—she didn't kneel, she didn't even stop moving, just kept walking back and forth in front of the little waterfall, muttering, gesturing, as if she were addressing someone who stood beside her. An impulse took me—I'm sure it was because of the danger we all faced, rather than a kick from the Goddess, but I went up to Maran, stopped her for a moment, and kissed her cheek. Just like a daughter.

Tears sprang into her eyes, sudden as a spring shower, and she wrapped her arms about me. "Oh, Lanen," she said, just for a moment holding me close. "Bless you for that."

Our devotions were soon done, and as we walked back to rejoin the others I happened to glance at Vilkas. I never meant to look at him with my new depth of vision, but so it was. I shuddered. I had once watched a travelling silversmith ply his trade, and I swear that under the surface Vilkas was like nothing on earth more than molten metal burning off impurities; white-hot and boiling, dangerous, beautiful, and waiting to be shaped by the hand of the maker. How he could bear it I will never know.

And suddenly a clarion call ringing in my mind.

"It comes!" cried Shikrar. "Rise up, my people!"

We started running when to my amazement I heard another voice.

Stop bloody posturing and get on with it. Bloody dragons! If you'd just damn well kill the thing I may live to see another day.

A voice I had heard before, but never with my mind. "Bloody hellsfire! Marik?"

"My name somebody heard me Hells what is this?"

His mindvoice was shrill with panic. Varien waited beside Idai, who was to bear us to a safe place on the far side of the mountains. I took Varien s hand and opened my mind to his.

"It's Lanen, Marik. You said you could only hear."

"It was true up to this moment where are you how can you hear me?"

"Can you hear him?' I asked Varien as we scrambled with Vil and Aral into Idai's impatient hands. The instant we were all together Idai launched herself skyward, throwing us all off balance.

"Hear who?" shouted Varien, struggling to keep his footing.

"Marik!" I yelled.

Varien obviously couldn't hear what I was saying: it wasn't worth trying to talk. Idai and Gyrentikh were flying as fast as they could, but because there are no thermals so early in the day they were having to fly to the end of the mountain ridge, south and a long way west of where they wanted to be, then back around east and north to Lake Gand. It was sheer hard work. It didn't help that they were also burdened with the eight of us.

However, it did mean that we saw the arrival of the Black Dragon. It headed straight for the castle nesded up against the mountains' roots. Casde Gundar. My father's home.

It was not alone. Behind it, above it, flew many of die Dhrena- gankantri. They watched closely as it aimed itself direcdy at the casde, then held back. They all knew the basics of the plan of attack, and praise Shia there didn't seem to be any more of them who desired death so strongly that they must needs pursue it.

We came to ground on a hilltop, near the shore of Lake Gand. Idai dropped us as gendy as she could as she came to land. She did not rest, but launched herself immediately off the edge and aloft again. Gyrentikh did the same before joining the gathering cloud of Kantri.

Idai swooped past then, returning with the last and largest boulder to lay on top of a cairn of stones that she and many others had carried from the mountains' feet by moonlight in the small hours. Many of the Dhrenagan and the Kantri took this fleeting moment of quiet to fly into the mountains, searching, taking this brief chance to learn the lay of the land in daylight.