The glory of Alma sang in his blood. Fire like the sun gusted beneath his heels. The moon upon his brow gleamed. He felt unbounded by physical body, unencumbered by space and time, keenly aware that before the new could be born, the old must be scoured away. He felt the agent of both that imminent demise and the coming rebirth, at one with all things, with Alma. It seemed the fire he danced was the great Fire, the One Dance that circled the world and the stars, the Cycle of All Things.

When at last his exultation waned, he understood that the dragonsup was ebbing, his divinity passing. Mortality returned. Time to make his way aboveground. He veered upward. As he emerged from the burning maze, air’s coolness washed like a long drink of water against his skin. In the darkness of falling ash, he could not tell if it were day or night.

A dim, round orb that might have been either moon or sun gleamed wanly overhead. Canted off to one side, it threw only the slenderest of light. Ash lay thick upon everything, changing the look of the land, painting it grey ghostly as the realm of haunts. He found he was not lost, knew himself to be at the southernmost edge of the wyvern shelves, where they intercepted the Plain.

The Mare’s Back, too, lay deep in cindersnow. He shook himself, dislodging a soft cloud of the fine, feathery ash from his pelt. Moments later, it began to coat him again. He turned northward, toward the Hallow Hills and the cliff beneath the milkwood groves where the heart of the battle had raged, certain that soon or late, if he followed this course, he would rejoin Tek.

Barely awake, Lell lay listening to the soft lap of the water supporting her. The world around her stood dark and very still. Ash was falling onto her half-closed eye. It piled in a downy heap on her eyelashes. She blinked, stirring. The water felt deliciously cool after the terrible sensation of burning that had troubled her dreams. She rolled, floundering, and found herself in shallows. Her folded limbs touched bottom, her knees and hocks in contact with coarse, shifting sand.

“Get up,” she heard Aiony saying faintly, but quite distinctly, from somewhere nearby.

Dully, the amber filly struggled to untangle her disobedient limbs. A moment later, she was able to stand. The scent of milkwood blooms wafted all around her, their aroma heavy and all-pervading. She felt the tingle of the milkwood buds she had eaten, and the resinous smoke she had inhaled, suffusing her blood.

“Pull Illishar out of the water,” Dhattar’s soft voice chimed. “The moon’s mere has seen to his burns, just as it did yours—but he’s not awake yet, and it’s time he came out.”

Lell stood trembling, feeling the soft weight of ashfall. It clung damply to her pelt. There was no shaking it off. So thick were the cinders sifting out of the sky that the world seemed dark as twilight. Was that the moon shining above her, or the sun? She saw Dhattar and Aiony standing at the edge of the circular mere. The pure pallor of the white foal’s pelt and the silver of Aiony’s pied coloring seemed subtly, inexplicably, to glow.

“Where am I?” Lell muttered thickly, snorting to get the ash-mud from her nostrils.

“The Mirror of the Moon,” Aiony replied, her voice strangely far-sounding, “where Illishar bore you to douse the flames. He knows naught of its healing powers, but he knew it was water, the closest to be found.”

“Illishar!” Lell gasped, fully awake now, her heart giving a sharp, silent thump. “Where…?”

“Behind you,” Dhattar replied.

Lell wheeled unsteadily, spied the gryphon tercel floating half submerged in the clear surface of the mere, which was littered with milkwood flowers, she saw. The ashfall did not seem to affect the pool’s clarity. Instead, inexplicably, the cinders appeared to vanish upon contact with the waters, which remained crystal clear, the mere’s sandy bottom still snowy white, unsmirched. Its whiteness glowed almost as distinctly as Dhattar and Aiony.

“Pull him out,” Dhattar was telling her.

Lell waded to the unconscious wingcat, bent to grasp one splayed, waterlogged wing in her teeth. She backed toward shore. He drifted amazingly easily, supported by the mere. She managed to drag his head, neck, and most of his shoulders onto the shore. He twitched, sputtered, but did not wake. A bright silvery substance spattered his throat and chest. It coated most of his pelt and much of one wing. Curious, Lell bent to sniff. The fur and feathers there smelled odorless and new.

“What is it?” she stammered.

“The bright spots?” Aiony asked.

“Where the fire burned him and the mere healed him,” Dhattar replied.

“Healed you as well,” Aiony continued.

Lell glanced down at herself. She, too, was covered with patches of pale new hair. She stared at it.

“Burned?” she murmured, mystified. It had been a dream.

“The mere saved you both,” Aiony replied, earnestly, distantly.

“Illishar’s scorched pinions and pelt have come back silver. Your own burnt hair has sprouted gold.”

Lell turned to stare at the twin filly and foal. They stood quietly, only a few paces distant, still glowing softly, oddly in the dim ashfall. Lell shook herself, felt the ash upon her pelt dislodge. None, she realized suddenly, was settling on either Dhattar or Aiony. It was falling through them.

“The ash…,” she exclaimed.

They glanced at one another. “It hasn’t reached us yet,” Aiony said.

“How are you come here?” Lell whispered, too stunned to think clearly.

“We’re on the Plain,” Dhattar replied, “with the Plainsdwellers and the rest. We’re three days’ journey from you still. The ash won’t reach us for hours yet.”

Lell could not take her eyes from them. Their translucent brightness fascinated her. “But where—how…?”

Aiony shrugged. “We stand by an oasis pool, gazing into it.

We see you and Illishar, the Mirror of the Moon.”

“We watched the battle thus, earlier,” Dhattar went on. “We only called you now to wake you, urge you to come out. It was time, and you were very deep asleep.”

“The battle,” Lell gasped, casting about her suddenly. “How goes the battle?”

“Peace,” Dhattar answered. “It’s won. Wyverns routed and Lynex borne away. Jan is returned. All’s well.”

Her mind a tangle, Lell half turned, but Aiony called, “List. You need not go down to them so soon. Rest. Illishar will want you by him when he wakes. Ample time betides. The Hills are won, the old age slain, a new age about to be born. Sleep. Regain your strength.”

Her voice faded, retreating further and further as she spoke. Her image and that of Dhattar grew thin, finally vanishing altogether. Only ashfall drifted where the pair had stood. The amber filly felt her trembling limbs give way. How foolish to think she could have taken another step. Of course she must stay with Illishar, must tell him everything when he woke.

“Illishar,” she murmured, bending over him. The slumbering gryphon stirred. Soft growling or purring sounded deep in his throat, but his eyes remained shut, limbs loose, his breathing steady. Her own eyes slid closed. She sank into sleep with one cheek pressed against his feathery breast.

The end of the world lasted three days’ time. For all that while, the grey ash fell, gloaming the sun to a pitiful light weaker than the moon and stealing all warmth, so the days were cool and the nights chill dark. Cinders covered all the Hallow Hills and the wyvern shelves and the Plain beyond as far as any eye could see. And by the close of that period, these things had been achieved: Jan emerged from the wyverns’ dens; Lell and Illishar awoke and descended from the moonpool to rejoin their folk; Ses gathered her filly to her with joyous cries, then bowed in gratitude before her gryphon rescuer.