He accepted a cup of tea and called for a honeycake, and when it was delivered to his palsied hand, he fixed Arin with a gimlet eye and said, "Now what's all this about visions and such?"

"Just this, Wizard Zelanj: I want to know whether visions foretell things which must be, or instead speak of those things which merely might be. Are we locked into a future which we cannot change… or do we have some choice in the matter?"

"Heh, you've asked one of the oldest questions of all: is destiny immutable, where nothing can be changed, or do we have the freedom to choose? As to the truth of the matter, the debate still goes on. Certainly I don't know what it might be."

"Oh." The small disappointment escaped Arin's lips.

"There, there, my dear, it's not all that bad."

"But I was hoping-"

"Hoping that I could answer the unanswerable?"

Arin nodded. "Some such."

The aged Wizard shrugged and took a bite of his honeycake and chewed slowly and thoughtfully.

Arin set her cup aside, then turned to the seer. "Tell me of visions, Mage Zelanj. Can they be altered? Changed? Their dooms averted? Can the events of my vision of the Dragonstone be changed?"

The ancient seer took a sip of his tea. "Perhaps, child. Perhaps."

Rissa looked at the old Mage. "Hast thou ever known of a vision whose outcome was altered?"

"Certainly," said the oldster. "In my manipulation of the aethyr I have seen many things which could be or were changed."

"A moment, Wizard," protested Perin. "If things can be altered, then hast thou not answered the oldest question of all?"

"Hai, brother," exclaimed Biren, clapping his twin on the shoulder, "I think thou hast hit upon it." Biren turned to Zelanj. "If things can in truth be changed, doesn't that say there is indeed free choice?"

"Aye," appended Perin. "Doesn't that say we are not marching along in lockstep at the behest of fixed Destiny into an unchangeable future?"

"Aye. Doesn't it?" echoed Biren.

"Oh, no, not at all," replied Zelanj, waving his half-eaten honeycake at them. "You see, let us say instead some visions are true and some are false, and that the false ones can be changed, proving they were false in the first place. Even so, we may have no choice in the matter and be predestined to prove them false, and therefore we take steps to change them, and in fact do. On the other hand, if we are truly free to choose, and if our choice is to try to alter the vision, if we succeed in changing the outcome then once again we will have proved the vision false. Conversely, if we took no steps, or took steps but failed, then would it not be the case that this vision was true? One destined to be fulfilled? In either instance, true vision or false, changed or not, neither outcome answers the question as to whether we have free choice in the paths ahead or are stuck to following a predestined course." He looked at the twins. "Do you follow what I am saying?"

The twins looked at one another, and then both shook their heads, No, and Perin said, "Uh, thou didst take one turn too many for me to step through thy logical maze." To which Biren added, "Aye, I deem I stepped to the left when thou turned right somewhere along the way."

"Huah!" grunted Ruar. "I followed thee, Wizard, and if such is the case, then I would ask thee this: what good are visions at all if they may or may not be true?"

"Why, boy, they are to get us to do something, or so I suspect. If we have free choice, then they ennoble us to action; if we have no free choice, then they make us think we are ennobled to action. In either case we feel a sense of purpose, a reason for being."

"But, Wizard Zelanj," said Arin, "is it not also possible that a vision shows us what merely might be, and if we strive to change the outcome we can at times alter the course?"

"Certainly, my dear, that is one view: the notion that free choice can overcome predestination. On the other hand, the reverse could be argued as well… that no matter what we believe, the outcome is already fixed."

Arin sighed. "And in the case of my vision, hast thou any advice?"

"Why, go out there, girl, and do something," replied the ancient Mage. "Perhaps you'll prove it false, changeable; then again, perhaps not. Heh, the test is in the striving… or not."

On the ninth day after arriving at Black Mountain, the Elven band prepared to depart, Aiko now in their ranks. The Mages had reprovisioned them and had provided Arin with a horse to replace the one storm-slain. The sturdy mountain ponies were laden with the supplies for the long journey ahead. Silverleaf and Rissa and the others planned to ride with Arin and Aiko along the old trade route as far as the Silverwood and Kaagor Pass but no farther, for to continue with them might jeopardize the mission. And so, when Arin and Aiko would turn north to fare through the Grimwall and head for Fjordland beyond, the remainder would set out southerly, to report on the mission unto Corons Remar and Aldor, and to perhaps bear the word onward to High King Bleys and others.

"Tell all to aid Dara Arin and Lady Aiko, should they come their way," said Sage Arilla.

"We shall do so," replied Rissa, smiling briefly at Arin, then frowning, "for I deem aid will be needed to stave off the doom ahead."

"Assuming it can be staved," grumbled Ruar.

Following Arilla and the Dwarf, Boluk, they led the horses and ponies out through the postern gate to come to the snow-dusted courtyard before the great iron gates. As Arin mounted up she glanced at the mighty portals where Dragons had come long past. “There is a thing thou never told us, Arilla," said the Dylvana to the Sage.

Arilla looked up at her. "And that is…?"

"Thou didst never speak the name of the Mage who stood before these very gates and parleyed with the Drakes."

"Oh, he is no longer with us, and where he is I cannot say. Perhaps on Rwn. Perhaps in Vadaria. He could be anywhere among the worlds of the Planes."

"And his name…?"

"Ordrune."

“Ordrune!" exploded Egil, lunging up and forward in his bed, his face distorted in fury and flaming with wrath.

"Waugh!" shrieked Alos, pitching over backwards and crashing to the floor, scrambling across the boards on hands and knees to be away from Egil's mad rage. Arin gasped in shock, frozen for the moment, but Aiko, her swords in hand, stepped between the wroth man and the startled Dylvana. Then Egil cried out in agony and clutched his head and face, the violent outburst hammering his savaged forehead and eye and cheek with intense pain, and he fell back prostrate on the bed, air seething in and out between clenched teeth as he gritted, "He is the one. He is the one."

Arin rose and moved past Aiko and her glittering swords and stepped to the wounded man's side. Against a far wall, Alos whimpered, his one-eyed gaze wide, and switching back and forth between the bed and his ale mug still rolling in small circles on the floorboards, the untasted brew seeping down into the cracks between.

Now Arin poured water into a cup and stirred a white powder in. "Here, Egil. Drink."

Mutely, Egil took the cup and drank the contents down.

Seeing that Egil seemed rational again, Alos crawled back across the floor and retrieved his mug and tipped it up for the remaining few drops to fall on his waiting tongue. Then shakily he stood and uprighted his chair at the table once more, and from the pitcher he poured another mugful and gulped a great swallow down.

Arin took the empty cup from Egil, and asked, "What dost thou know about Mage Ordrune, Egil? What is it that lies between the Wizard and thee? Does it bear on our mission?"