He glanced at the sky, seeking light, but the brooding menace of Caer Duirga returned all too quickly. As darkness fell, he went back to the camp.

That night, while the others slept, Erin came to him and silently led him away from the camp. There, out of sight and earshot, they made love again, fighting off the cold and the fear of the night. Before dawn, they rose and crept back into camp, masked by a simple illusion Erin wove softly under her breath. As they parted to return to their own sleeping rolls, Gaelin cupped her face in his hands and kissed her tenderly.

She shivered in his arms, and slipped away.

In the morning, Gaelin rose and donned his half-plate armor over a rust-stained aketon and a set of sturdy leather leggings. He left off his greaves and brassards, to save weight; he still wore forty pounds of iron, but he wouldn’t part with any more of his armor, even in the face of the morning’s climb. At one point, he glanced up and caught Erin watching him, while she tugged on her own long boots. He found himself remembering their encounter just a few short hours ago, and the mischievousness in her glance told him that she was remembering as well. He turned back to the business of dressing and arming himself, smiling until he glanced up and saw Seriene watching him. She closed her eyes and turned away, throwing herself into an intense examination of her spellbooks.

After everyone was dressed and armed, Gaelin set two guards to watch over the camp. The rest of the group started up the steep, slippery hillside in single file. Bull led the way; he was a skilled outdoorsman, and probably the best climber of them all. He chose a sideways path that curved around the slope of the mount, allowing them to more or less walk upright, although in several places they had to scramble on all fours. Seriene followed Bull, a distant expression on her face, as if she listened for a sound no one else could hear. Gaelin helped her along, while Erin, Boeric, and the remaining guardsmen brought up the rear.

The hillside was not a very difficult climb, but it was an arduous hike. By daylight, Gaelin could see more of Caer Duirga. It wasn’t a natural hill, or at least, it didn’t look like it belonged among the knife-edged ridges that surrounded it.

Caer Duirga was a mass of jagged stone that burst out of the surrounding hills, a titanic black claw emerging from a hidden grave. Tall pillars the size of castle turrets leaned drunkenly away from the main massif, hiding dark glens and chimneys in their shadows. In the lower reaches, impenetrable briars and stands of black, twisted trees made the going nearly impossible. Here and there, Gaelin thought he could make out the ruins of ancient walls, now fields of wreckage hard to distinguish from the mass of the hill itself.

Within an hour, they climbed two hundred feet while zigzagging two miles across the hillside. Despite the clammy mists that surrounded them, Gaelin was sweating profusely.

The view would have been impressive, if the day were clearer – but Gaelin suspected that there weren’t many sunny days around Caer Duirga.

After two hours’ difficult work, they neared the hill’s summit.

The hill grew steeper as it rose, and the relatively easy going of the lower slopes was now becoming a dangerous and time-consuming chore. Bull selected their path a few yards at a time, and they spent more time picking their way up with hands and feet. Gaelin could swear the hillside deliberately obstructed their way, as solid-looking handholds crumbled away in his grasp or his foot slipped suddenly on what seemed to be dry, sturdy stone. One of the guardsmen lost his grip, and a nasty slide deposited him fifty feet down the slope.

Three hours after they left camp, they found themselves standing on the black, crumbling rock of Caer Duirga’s crest.

The air was cold and clear, almost unnaturally so, as if the hill was crowned in dark ice. Gaelin’s legs quivered in exhaustion, and his hands ached from a variety of small cuts and strains. Few of the others were in any better shape, and for a good twenty minutes they simply dropped onto boulders or flat spaces and caught their breath, shivering with the cold.

The guards’ jests and gibes fell flat in the desolate air of the place, and they soon lapsed into silence.

Seriene stood and began to examine the area, circling around their impromptu campsite. The hill crest itself was easily three hundred feet in width, and ran for half a mile to the east before descending into a rough jumble of broken rock and wiry thickets. The land was surprisingly level, and Gaelin found himself imagining that the rocky spires rising from the top of the hill were indeed an ancient keep, ossified or engulfed by the hill long ago. Seriene moved off slowly, examining the rocks while she muttered to herself and made strange passes with her hands. With a groan, Gaelin stood and followed her; he wasn’t about to let anyone wander out of sight.

For the next hour, Seriene carefully circled the whole hilltop, leaving no inch of ground uncovered. At length, she returned to the place where they had first scrambled up, her face tight with concern. “There’s no doubt that this place conceals a powerful source of dark mebhaighl,” she reported, grimacing.

“I can well believe there was an ancient power that laired here. It stained the place with evil. Can any of you sense it?”

Erin nodded silently. Gaelin agreed. “The whole place gives me the shivers,” he admitted. “I can feel it watching us.”

Seriene nodded at the dark fissures that ran back mazelike into the hill’s heart. “You feel the mebhaighl,” she said. “Bannier’s source of power is very close.”

“What? Is it here?”

“Almost, but not quite. It actually lies within the Shadow World, but this is the place that corresponds to its location on the other side.”

“Could Bannier harness such a thing?” he asked.

Seriene nodded gravely. “There are powers in the darkness, powers with which a wizard of skill and strength can ally himself.”

Erin joined the conversation. “It would explain much, Gaelin. Think of the enchantment we saw Bannier weave just a few days ago to destroy your army at Marnevale.”

“What can we do about this? Is there any way to sever his connection with the Shadow?” Gaelin asked.

“Not from here, no,” Seriene replied. “But within the Shadow, things may be different.”

“You can’t mean to go there!” Gaelin cried.

Seriene’s eyes glittered. “It’s only a step away, Gaelin. Anywhere you go, it’s right there. Behind the mirror, in the shadow of a tomb, we’re never far from the twilight world.

It’s dangerous, yes, but I’ve been there before.”

Erin nodded. “It’s said that the last emperor, Michael Roele, led his army through the Shadow a number of times in order to confound his enemies.” She looked at the overcast skies and the bleak stones of the hillside. “Although I doubt he sought out places like this when he passed the door of night.”

“Well, Gaelin?” Seriene watched him, allowing him no respite. “Ilwyn may be imprisoned only a few dozen yards from where we stand.”

He shuddered. “Very well, although I don’t like it.”

The princess said, “Gather everyone near. I will open a doorway – it shouldn’t be hard, not here – and we will go inside.

I’ll be first, and then everyone else will follow, one at a time.”

“Can we get back, once we go over?” said Erin.

Seriene raised her hands. “Unless there’s something on the other side to preclude it,” she replied. “Would you feel better if I scouted it out first?”

Gaelin stepped in. “No, we won’t divide ourselves. If there’s trouble, I don’t want Seriene to face it alone.” He called Boeric, Bull, and the other guards over, and explained the situation to them. Not surprisingly, the men were not pleased by the prospect, but they did an admirable job of restraining their protests.