Unpleasantly evocative words. Once, he thought he clearly heard a voice say: pain. And then the muttering died until he heard, or thought he heard, the word death. And suffering, darkness and terror. Then more meaningless, wordless whispering.

He looked at the dog again. She remained alert but the actual words, of course, held no meaning for her. She was reacting only to the sound. His mind went back to the terror he had felt years before, when he and Halt and Gilan were hunting the evil Kalkara beasts across the Solitary Plain. Then, as now, the terror of unknown sounds had seized and threatened to overwhelm him. But then, he'd had the reassuring presence of Halt to quell his fears. Now he had only himself.

He took a deep breath. The saxe knife made a soft hiss as it slid from its oiled scabbard and he said, clearly and firmly, to the shadows around him:

"Steel."

The whispering stopped.

The dog looked at him. Her tail wagged once. Her hackles lowered and he felt better. Face your fears, Halt had always taught him, and more often than not they will fade like mist in the sunshine. Whispering and words were one thing, he thought. The razor-sharp, heavy saxe knife was another altogether. More practical. More real. More compelling.

And altogether more dangerous.

"Lead on, dog. Let's find these whisperers." He gestured for the animal to continue. He followed a few steps behind her, confident in her ability to sense danger.

It was as well he let her lead. Otherwise he might have walked straight into the black waters of the mere that suddenly appeared as they rounded a bend.

The path skirted its edge to the right. Set among the trees, it was an expanse of black water thirty meters across. At its edge, the trees trailed creepers into the water and leaned over to meet each other-some so tall that they nearly touched hands with their opposite neighbors-so that there was clear sky only above the center of the lake.

Vapor rose from the water's surface, twisting in wreaths of fine mist that dissipated as they rose to the trees. And bubbles broke the surface where rotting vegetation lay below. Or where some large creature breathed, he thought. On the far side of the water, opposite where he stood, the mist seemed to be thicker, forming what was most a curtain. He stopped to study the phenomenon, wondering why the mist should be thicker in that one spot. The dog sank to her belly, watching him intently, ready to move off if he started walking again.

Then, in a heart-stopping moment of absolute terror, a giant figure loomed out of the mist, towering high above the mere, seeming to rise from the black water itself.

It happened as quickly as that. One moment there was nothing Then, in the blink of an eye, the figure was there, fully formed. Huge and menacing, black against the mist, a shadow of a giant warrior in ancient, spiked armor, with a massive winged helmet on its head. It must have been twelve meters high, he thought as he stood, rooted to the spot in horror. The helmet was a full-face design, but where the eyeholes pierced it, there was empty space.

The figure seemed to shiver slightly and for one ghastly moment he thought it was moving toward him. Then he realized it was simply the movement of the mist curtain. Will's heart hammered inside his ribs, and his mouth was dry with fear. This was no mortal figure, he knew. This was something from the other side, from the dark world of sorcery and spells. Instinctively, he knew that none of his weapons could harm it.

The figure towered, unmoving apart from the slight quivering of the mist. The empty eyeholes seemed to seek him out. Then he heard the voice.

It was deep and seemed to echo around the black lake, as if he were hearing it in some vast cavern rather than the open woods.

"Beware, mortal!" it boomed. "Do not awaken the shade of the Night Warrior. Leave this place now while you are still able!"

The dog sprang to her feet at the sound of the massive voice. A growl rumbled in her throat and Will quieted her in a voice that was nowhere near steady.

"Still, girl!" he croaked, and the growling stopped. But he could see that the ruff around her neck had raised in a primeval reaction of either anger or fear. He could feel the hairs on his own neck standing on end in the same way. Across the lake, the mist seemed thicken and the terrifying figure seemed to grow more and more substantial, as if it were drawing power from the mist. This time, when it spoke, the voice was even louder than before.

"Go now while I grant you the chance! Leave!"

The final word echoed around the mere and Will found himself involuntarily moving back the way he had come, stepping away from the black lake and the hellish warrior. He stumbled on a tree root, looked down to recover himself and then, as he looked up, the Night Warrior was gone.

Just like that. In an instant, like a candle extinguished. He glanced fearfully around the mere, wondering if the warrior might reappear somewhere closer. Then the voice came again. It was low this time, nowhere near the volume of the original, and this time there were no words. Just a deep, menacing chuckle. Will's last reserves of courage left him.

"Come on, girl!" he called and, turning, he ran blindly back out of Grimsdell Wood, the dog slipping past him to lead the way to where they could see the clear night sky and the brilliant stars overhead. Only then did Will stop running. His breath came in ragged clouds of steam in the cold while his heart thumped at double time. He waited several minutes, until his breathing settled to a more natural rhythm.

When they came in sight, the black bulk of Castle Macindaw seemed welcoming and comforting to him. The torch burning by the postern gate was a beacon of safety and he hurried toward it, anxious to be inside the walls.

Will slept badly for the rest of the night, as was to be expected. His sleep was patchy and uneven, populated by dreams of the towering Night Warrior. It was only toward dawn that he managed to fall into a deep sleep and inevitably, shortly after he had, he was woken by the early morning sounds of the castle rising.

He lay for a moment on the bed, wondering if he really had seen and heard the horrific figure the night before. For a minute or two, his brain muddled by sleep, he thought it might have been a nightmare. He rose, stretching stiff limbs and muscles, realizing that his entire body had been tensed as he slept. The dog, chin on paws, belly down on the warm flagstones by the embers of the fire, cocked her ears at him and thumped her tail twice in greeting.

"It's all right for you," he said morosely. "You have no idea how terrifying that was last night." He opened the shutters and looked out at the new day. It was bright and sunny, the morning light glistening off the snow-covered countryside surrounding Macindaw. Training and discipline demanded that he should take time to review the events of the night before while they were fresh in his mind, trying to find some logical explanation for them. After ten minutes' analysis, he came to the reluctant conclusion that he had seen the figure. He had heard its voice. And he had been terrified as never before.

The light of day brought no logical explanation, no physical solution. There was something terrible in Grimsdell Wood. He let out a long sigh. He thought again of Halt's briefing, and his opinion that, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, there was an explanation for such phenomena.

"I suppose I'm going to have to go back and find out what it is," Will said quietly.

Not surprisingly, he had little appetite when he went for breakfast in the dining hall. But he managed to cram down a couple of warm rolls, smearing them with a preserve made from raspberries, and by the time he was halfway through his second cup of coffee his jangled nerves were almost back in place. Not looking for company, he sat alone at one of the long tables in the hall, staying away from the small groups that clustered together, chatting quietly over their breakfast. It was there that the page found him.