"Yes, it did," Mari said in amazement.

The opening in the inner sphere was now aligned with a similar-sized opening in the outer sphere. Beyond was moonlight. Without warning, Isela's wizened face appeared in the opening. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she snapped. "An invitation?"

Twelve

Isela served them soup as they huddled around a dancing fire. The night was cold, and Isela's dwelling offered scant protection from the frosty autumn air. The witch made her home in a chamber of what Morhion supposed was once a palace. Only three of the chamber's walls still stood, and the roof had collapsed in one corner.

The witch shoved a rudely carved wooden bowl into Morhion's hands. "Eat, wizard," she said curtly. "You will need your strength for what lies ahead."

The mage gave Isela a curious look. She made a peculiar figure, with her straggly gray hair, her craggy face, her bony form huddled inside a shapeless mass of dirty rags. Yet the keen light of intelligence in her eyes was unmistakable. Whatever the witch Isela was, she was not crazy. Morhion did not feel hungry—his head ached fiercely from the wound on his brow—but he did his best to eat some of the soup, so as not to offend Isela. The broth was flavored with strange herbs and contained the meat of an animal he did not recognize.

Cormik cautiously stirred his own bowl. "I really hate to complain—"

"Then I suggest you don't," Jewel interrupted, digging an elbow into his side as she glanced at Isela.

He shot her a perturbed look. "It's only a figure of speech, Jewel. You know perfectly well that I actually love to complain."

"Really, Cormik," she chided him, "you have no idea what you're missing." She scooped up a large spoonful of soup, including the scaly foot of some nameless creature, and ate it with relish. After that, Cormik made only gagging noises, and the others were able to eat in peace.

It was Kellen who broke the silence. "Isela, why do you think I'm the one mentioned in the prophecy?"

Isela fixed him with her piercing gaze. "I do not think you are the one, child. You are the one." She shook her head wearily, passing a gnarled hand before her eyes. "But I had no idea you would be so long in coming. How I have longed to lie down upon the forest floor, to let my bones sink deep into the ground and nourish my beloved trees. Still I waited, as I was pledged to do." She lifted her gaze once more to Kellen's face. "And now my waiting is over at last. The prophecy has come to pass."

"But what is the prophecy?" Kellen asked.

When Isela finally spoke, it was in an eerie whisper. "Long, long ago, in an age now lost in the mists of time, there was a great oracle who was a leader of his people, a tribe of the Talfirc. The oracle journeyed to this place and said that, one day, there would come a child marked by magic, in whose hands would lie the fate of all the Talfirc.

The child would come on a quest to stop a great darkness. Someone must await his coming, to aid him when he was in need. So the Talfirc built a city here, and they called it Talis. They remembered the prophecy and awaited the coming of the child wizard." Isela sighed heavily. "But the child never came, the city fell to ruin, and the prophecy was forgotten."

"Except by you." Kellen said, reaching out to touch her crooked hand.

Isela stared at Kellen in surprise, then her expression darkened. "Aye, I remembered. But what does it matter now if the child wizard holds the fate of all the Talfirc in his hands? There are no more Talfirc. They vanished long ago. They are all gone now. All gone."

"Except for you, Isela?" Morhion asked softly.

The witch only laughed her dry, cackling laugh and gazed at him with hard obsidian eyes. After that, Isela seemed unwilling to talk. She curled up in a corner and was still and silent. The companions retrieved their bedrolls from the horses outside and readied themselves for sleep.

"Do you really think she's a thousand years old, Morhion?" Mari whispered as they lay down by the fire. "I know it's impossible, but I almost believe she has lived in Talis since its destruction, awaiting the fulfillment of the prophecy. She does seem to know a great deal about what happened here a thousand years ago. What do you think?"

Morhion met her gaze. "I think, Mari, that you have answered your own question." With that he shut his eyes and swiftly passed into sleep. "Morhion."

The whisper jolted him awake. His eyes fluttered open. It was Isela. She held a finger to her lips, then gestured for him to follow. He slipped silently from his blanket and padded after her in the sooty predawn light. She led him through twisting corridors until they came to another room. He guessed it might once have been a library, though the wooden shelves had rotted to splinters, and the books had long ago become mulch for the fragrant wild mint that carpeted the floor.

Isela moved to a rusted iron chest and threw back the lid. She drew out two objects and handed them to Morhion. One was a book, its crackling yellow pages still protected by a cover of oiled leather. The second was a silver ring set with a violet gem.

Morhion raised an eyebrow. "What are these things, Isela?"

She placed her gnarled hands on her hips. "That is for you to discover, wizard. But I will tell you this—you will have need of them on your quest."

His eyes narrowed. "How is it you know what we seek to do?"

She waved this away as if it were an unimportant detail. "How I know matters not. But heed me, wizard. You seek to destroy a great shadow. Yet shadows can exist only when there is light to cast them. To destroy the shadow, you must destroy the light as well. Do not forget that."

"I won't," he promised solemnly, though he was not sure what she meant.

She nodded and, without a word, turned to leave. By the time they made it back to the sleeping chamber, the others were waking. They ate a breakfast of hardtack and leftover soup—ignoring more of Cormik's grumbling—and discussed their plans. They had to cross the River Reaching and return to the Dusk Road to search for Caledan's trail. Isela claimed to know a way across the river, though she remained deliberately mysterious.

"You shall see," was all she said.

They gathered on the damp green bank of the river in the misty light of dawn. "You have got to be joking," Cormik said in blatant disbelief.

"How, by all the gold of Ghaethluntar, are we going get a horse across the river in that?" Jewel gave Cormik's paunch an appraising look. "I'm not certain it's the horses that will be the problem." Cormik treated her to a withering glare. "You actually enjoy being unpleasant, don't you?"

"Just to you, love," she said, parting her ruby lips in a winning smile.

Morhion studied the contraption Isela had rigged for crossing the frothing torrent of the river. He had the distinct impression that the entire thing had not been built, but had rather been grown. A thick vine hung across the river, attached to a stout oak tree on each bank. Suspended from the braided vine was a large basket woven from green saplings. Attached to the basket was another, thinner cord that could be used to pull the craft along the main vine.

"Can it truly hold one of the horses, Isela?" Mari asked.

The witch nodded. "Once each fall I kill a stag for winter food. Often I hunt on the far side of the river, and bring the stag across in the basket. It will hold a horse."

Despite Cormik's skepticism, Isela was right. Mari and Jewel crossed first, easily pulling the basket along the vine to the far bank. The others pulled the basket back and began sending the horses across the river to the two women. It wasn't easy getting the horses into the curious conveyance, but with a cloth sack covering their eyes, the animals stayed reasonably calm. It took a great deal of grunting and heaving on the part of Mari and Jewel, but soon all the horses stood on the far bank.