"You will find him." White Crow for some reason avoided my eye.

There was no doubt in my mind that the Kakatanawa had kidnapped Ulric and brought him here. Now perhaps all I had to do was storm a city-sized pyramid! I hoped that my association with White Crow would make that unnecessary. I believed I was approaching a people whose motives were mysterious and possibly thoughtless, but who were not malevolent. Of course, my feelings were subjective. I could not help liking the youth, who might have been a son, and there was no doubt I felt a daughter's security in the company of the older sachem, Ayanawatta, so talkative and humorous, so full of idealism and common sense. There was a fitting unity about our trinity. But it was Ulric who remained my chief concern. While certain I would find him here, I still did not know why he had been brought here or, indeed, how White Crow had known where to find the medicine shield.

A sharp wind was beginning to blow from the east, and we sank deeper into our furs. I could smell every kind of sorcery on that wind. I remained confused, uncertain of its source or its purpose.

The faint path of silver continued to cross the ice. It ended at the great golden pillars which supported what could only be the main gate with heavy doors of bronze and copper. The city's architecture was covered in complicated carvings and paintings of the most exquisite workmanship. I remembered the Sinhalese temples of Anuradhapura. Scarcely an inch was undecorated. From this distance it was impossible to make out anything but the largest details. Each tier of the ziggurat's extraordinary structure abounded with doors and windows. The population of a small town must live on each of the lower levels. Other levels were clearly cultivated, so that Kakatanawa was entirely self-supporting. She could resist any siege.

I asked a stupid question. "Will the ice bear Bes's weight?" White Crow turned his head, smiling. "Bes is home, " he said. "Can't you tell?"

It was true that the amiable mammoth looked more alert, excited. Did she still have a family in Kakatanawa? I imagined stables full of these massive, goodnatured beasts. White Crow added, "This ice is thicker than the world. It goes down forever."

Then, as we continued to move forward, the mountains shook and grumbled. Dark clouds swirled around their peaks. The sky became alive with racing shafts of yellow, dark green and deep blue, all crackling and roaring, rumbling and shrieking. A wild screeching.

I reached for my bow, but I felt sick. I knew very well what that noise heralded. Lord Shoashooan, the Demon of the Whirlwind, appeared before us.

His dark, conical shape was more stable. The wide top whirled, and the tip twisted into the ice, sending out a blur of chips. I could see his flickering, bestial features, his cruel, excited eyes. It was as if Klosterheim and the Two Tongues had released him from some prison, where he had been frustrated in his work of destruction. We had not driven him away. We had merely made him retreat to reconsider his strategy.

There again on one side of him stood Klosterheim, shivering in his agitated cloak, while all that was left of the Two Tongues lay dying, breath hissing in the corner of his horrible, toothy mouth. Klosterheim had the air of a man who believed his odds of survival small.

White Crow flung up his arm, waving his great black-bladed spear. "Ho! Would a mere breath of air stop me from returning to Kakatanawa with the Black Lance? Do you know what you challenge, Lord Shoashooan?"

Klosterheim spoke through cracked lips over the shriek. "He knows. And he knows how to stop you. Time will freeze, as this lake is frozen. It will allow me to do everything I must do. Your medicine is weak now, White Crow. Soon the Pukawatchi will come and destroy you and take back the things which are their own."

White Crow frowned at this. Was it true? Had he expended all his power in conjuring the Shining Path?

Behind the great Lord of All Winds the golden city sparked and shifted so that sometimes it seemed only a vision, a projection, an illusion. Not a real place at all. Beyond us, nothing moved. Time did indeed seem to have stopped. White Crow bowed his head. "I am their last White Crow man, " he said. "If I do not bring them back the Black Lance, it will not only be the last of the Kakatanawa, it will be the last we shall ever know of the multiverse, save that final, eternal second before oblivion. He has seen that my medicine is now weak. I have no charms or rituals strong enough to defend us against the anger of Shoashooan."

He looked desperately to Ayanawatta, who replied gravely. "You must fly to the Isle of Morn and find help. You know this is what we planned."

White Crow said, "I will use the last of my magic. Bes will stay here with you. I will send you the help you need. But know how dangerous this will be for all of us."

"I understand." Ayanawatta turned to me. "It is for you to help us now, my friend."

Then without another word, White Crow was leaving us. I watched in astonishment as he ran swiftly away. He ran through the foothills and was soon lost from sight. I almost wept at his deserting us. I would never have anticipated it. Klosterheim cackled. "So the heroes show their real characters. You are not fit enough for these tasks, my friends. You challenge forces far too great."

I took my bow and stepped forward. Perhaps in my right mind I would have shot Klosterheim. I knew a kind of cold anger. I longed to be reunited with my husband, and I was determined not to be stopped. I do not know what instinct informed me, but I forced myself to walk closer and closer to the shrieking madness that was Lord Shoashooan, fitting an arrow to my bow. I could see a face in the center of the tornado. That same fierce, white-hot anger remained. I knew nothing of fear as I loosed my first arrow into Lord Shoashooan's forehead.

Without thought, I nocked and loosed again. My second arrow took him in the right eye. The third arrow took him in the left eye.

He began to squeal and bellow in outrage. Bizarre limbs clutched at his head. I knew Lord Shoashooan could not be killed so easily. My idea was to try to stay out of his reach and, like a bull terrier, worry at him until he was weak enough to be overcome.

It was no doubt a stupid idea, but I did not have a better one!

I had been too confident. I had only blinded the monster for a few seconds. Before I knew it, he seized me in his icy tendrils and drew me closer and closer to his chuckling maw. I could reach no more arrows. All I had was my bow. I flung the staff into that horrible mouth.

Lord Shoashooan's many eyes glared. He gagged. I had caused some sort of convulsion. He scraped at his mouth and clutched his throat, and suddenly the sentient tornado flung me away.

I saw gleaming white all around me as I fell heavily to the ice. I was dazed and barely conscious. I forced myself to gather my strength.

I knew I had no other choice.

For a moment I refused the inevitable, but it was a pointless rebellion. I knew it as I made it. I could still hear the terrible howling and clawing of Lord Shoashooan as he wrestled with the bow-stave I had flung into his maw.

I, too, had a preordained story in this world. A story which I must follow in spite of myself.

I was reconciled to what was expected of me. I had no other choice, even though I risked a terrible death. In one moment of recovered memory, I knew exactly what had led to this moment. I knew why I was here. I knew what I must now do. I understood it in my bones, in my soul.

I knew what I had to become.

I readied myself for the transformation.