Pour the beer ana light me feasting fires,

Bring you in the tall Yule trees, Without, let Father Frost ana Brother Death

reside

Let Mother Famine fly to farther fields,

Raise high the trees and high the ale-cup lift,

Let good will rule and to ill will all folk give short shrift.

OLD MOORSDALE SONG

Lord Shoashooan did not merely take shape above the fading causeway. He drew strength from the surrounding mountains. Storm clouds boiled in from north, south and west, masses of dark grey and black shot through with points of white, tumbling swiftly towards us.

Shale and rocks began to fly towards his spinning form, and from within that bizarre body his grotesque face laughed and raved in its greedy rage, utterly deranged. He was now more powerful than when either Oona or I had fought him. His size increased by the moment. Pieces of ice flew up from the lake to join the whirlwind's heavy debris. And when I looked deep into it, I saw the twisting bodies of men and beasts, heard their cries mingled with the vicious shriek of the cruel Warlord of Winds.

Realizing suddenly what he faced, White Crow frowned, murmured something to himself, then turned and began to run back down the long, curving roadway between the tiers. Sepiriz and Ayanawatta both cried out to him, but he ignored them. He flung some cryptic remark over his shoulder and then disappeared from sight. Was he deserting us? Where was Oona? Did he go to her? Was she safe? And who did he think his father was? Gaynor? How did White Crow hope to avoid conflict?

Questions were impossible. Even Sepiriz seemed flustered by the speed with which Lord Shoashooan was manifesting himself. The maddened Lord of Winds was already ten times more powerful than when he had sought to block our way across the ice. Prince Lobkowitz was grim as he hurried up the ramps. Higher and higher we climbed, and the tornado rose to match our height. The causeways grew tighter and narrower as we neared the top of the city, and the wind licked and tasted us, playing with us, to let us know there was no escaping its horrible intelligence, its vast destructive power.

As we neared the top, heavy pieces of earth and stone flew against the walls of Kakatanawa, chipping at surfaces, slashing into foliage. A large rock narrowly missed me, and Sepiriz shook twice as he was hit. Part of an outer wall fell. Through the gap I saw the tiny figures of the Vikings on the ice moving in closer, but we were momentarily safe from any immediate confrontation with them. We had no way to resist the invader even if we could engage him. Lord Sepiriz carried no sword. Save for Ayanawatta's bow and Prince Lobkowitz's cutlass, we had no weapons.

We had reached a broad-based tower with dark red walls and a deep blue ceiling and floor; a central spiral staircase led like a cord of silver up to a platform and what was clearly an experimental laboratory. An alchemical study, perhaps? Certainly Prince Lobkowitz had expected to find it there. He began at once to climb the stairs.

"Let's have a better look at our enemies, " he murmured. We followed him up. Here was an assortment of large, chunky machinery, mostly constructed of stone, like an old mill with huge granite cogwheels and smaller ones of beaten gold and platinum. Apparently this people, too, had no notion of smelting iron. The strange, bulky cogs and levers worked a series of lenses and mirrors. There was something familiar about all this.

Of course. My father had experimented with a smaller version at Bek before the first war. I realized we were looking at a rare form of camera obscura, which, by means of mirrors, could show scenes of the surface around the city. It was not entirely mechanical in nature. There were other forces involved in its construction, more common to Melnibone than Munich. Indeed, when Lord Sepiriz joined the stocky prince, he easily made parts move by a murmured command and a gesture. Gradually the two men brought the scene outside the gates into view.

I had been right. Gaynor the Damned led them. Near him was his turncoat lieutenant Klosterheim. The third man also wore a helmet, which obscured most of his face, but his eyes were shockingly familiar. He had an edgy, wolfish air, as did all the Vikings, but his was of a different quality. There was something fundamentally self-contained about the figure, and I feared him more than the others.

The Vikings did not look as if they had slept or eaten well for some time. Their journey here had clearly not been an easy one. I had rarely seen a hungrier bunch of cutthroats. They watched the Wind Demon with considerable wariness and did not look happy to be of Gaynor's party now. They were almost as nervous of the huge whirlwind as we were! Only the stranger in the black helmet seemed to be in a different mood. His eyes in shadow, his pale lips half-hidden by the upwardly thrusting chin-guard, the man was smiling. Like his eyes, his smile was one I recognized and feared.

Still larger rocks smashed into the walls, leaving deep gashes. Sepiriz was furious, muttering about the age of the place and what it had meant for so many millennia.

I think he had believed us safe, at least temporarily, in the remote fortress city, but these events were proving far more dangerous and whimsical than he had expected. He realized he may have underestimated the danger. The developing situation appeared to have defeated his imagination.

A gritty wind howled into the tall camera and whistled around the complicated confection of copper wires and polished mirrors, the worn granite cogwheels and brass pivots, the pools of mercury. There was a busy humming, a rattling and buzzing as the wind touched the delicate, half-supernatural instruments. Polished glass flashed and blinded me. Thin tubes rattled and hissed and scraped together.

Lord Shoashooan's voice whispered through the tall rooms, finding strange, ugly echoes. "Mortals and immortals both, you face your end without dignity or grace. Accept the fact that the Balance is finished. Its central staff has been lost, its scales discarded. Soon the tree itself will die. The regulator of the multiverse has failed you. Law triumphs. The steady calm of complete stability awaits you. Time is abolished, and you can anticipate, as do I, a new order." "The order you promise is the stasis of death, " Lord Sepiriz replied contemptuously. "You it is, Lord Shoashooan, who dishonors your own name. You it is who lacks both dignity and grace. You are a busy noise surrounding a vacuum. To destroy is your only effect. Otherwise you are less than a bird's dying breath."

A groan of anger. The walls rattled and cracked as the whirlwind's strength increased still more. Outside another great crash as masonry loosened and tumbled.

Lord Sepiriz's hands played over the strange instruments. His shoulders were hunched with the urgency of his actions. His eyes flashed from one point to another as if he sought a weakness somewhere.

He was reading signals within the mirrors, frowning over swirling glasses and tubes.

The chamber shook. It was like a heavy earthquake. My companions looked at one another. Clearly they had never anticipated such a force. Though outwardly artificial, this city had once been a wild mountain. Within she was still a living mountain. And Lord Shoashooan had the power to challenge this mountain, to threaten its destruction!

Outside, the entire landscape was filled with the wildly whirling debris. Below, at the apex, stood Gaynor and his men, looking up at the once invulnerable gates of the city as the wind remorselessly battered them to destruction. I could already see the gates beginning to bulge and split. Their iron bands and hinges, which hitherto could withstand any attack, now warped and twisted under the pressure. We were deafened by the roaring sound, and our hair and clothing lashed violently in every direction. Lord Sepiriz shouted at me. He signaled. I could not understand what he wanted.