Sturm knew at once and too late that he was overmatched. Vertumnus had the thoughtless grace of an expert swordsman, and the blade took life in his hand. He spoke to the lad as they circled each other, his words as soft and insinuating as the wind, his eyes locked on Sturm's.

"Set it aside, boy," Vertumnus whispered, the dark eyes flickering. "For you know not the forest you're bordering…where the blade fails against darkness and thorn…"

"Enough poetry!" Sturm muttered. "My sword for Brightblade and the Order!" He would at least make a good show of it.

But his thrust was tentative and slow. Vertumnus brushed it lightly away.

"For Brightblade and the Order?" the wild man hissed, suddenly behind the lad, who stumbled as he wheeled to face him. "For the Order gone bad in the teeth and botched? For a father… your father… who had no business with Solamnic honor?"

"No business?" Sturm's hand wavered with his voice. Vertumnus backed away from him, eyes on the main entrance to the council hall, to the stairway and the winter night. He thought he heard Derek snicker. "No business? Wh-what do you…"

Lord Wilderness's dark stare returned, fierce and almost predatory. With a swift turn of the wrist, as bright and elusive as summer lightning, Vertumnus's sword flashed by Sturm's uncertain guard and plunged deep into his left shoulder.

Dazed, breathless, Sturm fell to his knees. His shoulder, his chest, his heart blazed with green fire and lancing pain. The air hummed about his ears like a choir of insistent gnats, their song mournful and menacing.

So this is dying I am dying dying, his thoughts tumbled, and suddenly the pain subsided, no longer unbearable but dull and insistent as, to Sturm's consternation, the wound in his shoulder closed swiftly and cleanly, the fresh blood fading from his white ceremonial tunic. Yet the pain burrowed and seared, as insistent as the humming in the air.

"Look about you, boy," Vertumnus said scornfully. "Where is a place for a man like your father among the likes of these?"

Sturm forgot his wound at once. He shouted and surged to his feet, his young voice cracking with emotion. He rushed toward Vertumnus blindly, both hands bracing the shortsword. Calmly his opponent stepped aside, and the blade lodged deeply in an oaken limb, recently sprung from the heart of Huma's chair.

The lad tugged at the sword and tugged again, glancing frantically over his throbbing shoulder as Vertumnus stepped menacingly forward. Then slowly Vertumnus lowered his sword. He measured Sturm as the boy labored his blade from the hard wood and smiled when the young man whirled awkwardly to face him.

Vertumnus's grin was baffling, as unreadable as the edge of the wilderness. It angered Sturm even more than his words. With another cry, he lunged at his adversary, and Vertumnus's knees buckled as the lad's blade drove cleanly into his chest.

The flute clattered to the floor and lay still. Instantly the chill of winter returned and settled painfully about the Knights' feet. The hall lay silent, as if the air were frozen.

"Sturm…" Lord Stephan began in astonishment. The young man staggered, wrenched free the sword, and Vertumnus fell forward solidly and quite lifelessly. Gunthar rushed toward the Green Man, and Sturm winced as the strong hand of Lord Alfred clutched his shoulder.

The smear on Sturm's blade was clear and wet, and the resinous smell of evergreen rose from its blood gutter. He turned wildly, marking the puzzlement of Alfred, of Gunthar, Lord Stephan's strange wounded stare, and, by the sundered table, the anger of Lord Boniface, who glared incredulously and jealously at the lad, then stooped to wrench up his leggings.

"What have you done, lad?" Alfred bellowed. "What have you…" The question rang in the hall, again and again, the only sound in the abject, cavernous silence.

Then Vertumnus sprang up and pushed the astonished Lord Gunthar aside. Throughout the hall rushed an enormous intake of breath, as though the room itself had gasped. As Lord Wilderness touched the wound in his chest, it puckered and closed like a scar in living wood. Serenely his eyes sought Sturm's.

"It has come to this, young Brightblade. You have made your point and mine," Vertumnus announced, and the stones at his feet grew over with thick moss.

"The rest is your own foolishness. You have entered my game. Which, alas, you must now play to its end, as your shoulder will tell you daily and nightly."

Outside the window, the songbirds choired again. Wide-eyed, Sturm looked from the Green Man to his unwiped sword, from the sword back to Vertumnus. In great perplexity, with controlled focus, the young man touched his blade. It was dry and clean.

"Meet me on the first day of spring," Vertumnus ordered, again with a strange smile. "In my stronghold amid the Southern Darkwoods. Come there alone, and we shall settle this-sword to sword, knight to knight, man to man. You have defended your father's honor, and now I challenge yours. For now I owe you a stroke, as you owe me a life. For it is written in your cherished Measure that any man who returns a blow must stay the course of battle."

Sturm looked about him in confusion. Gunthar and Alfred stood frozen on the dais, and Lord Stephan opened his mouth to speak, but no words came forth.

Hawk-eyed, expectant, Lord Boniface nodded. What Vertumnus said concerning returning blow was indeed enshrined in the Measure. Sturm was trapped in an ancient statute by his impulsive deed.

"I will lead you to that place when the time comes," Vertumnus announced. "And you might learn something of your father in that place and time. However, you must make your own way. If you fail to meet me at the appointed place, on the appointed night, your honor is forever forfeit.

"Nor is your honor alone in jeopardy," Lord Wilderness continued with a mysterious smile. "For indeed, you owe me a life, Sturm Brightblade, and you will pay it whether or not you arrive at the appointed time."

Dramatically he gestured at the lad's shoulder.

"You can come like a child of the Order and meet my challenge," he pronounced, "or you can cower in the halls of this fortress and await the greening of your wound. For the deeds of my sword bloom forth in the spring, and their blossoms are dreadful and fatal."

The hall filled with more leaves and vines and tendrils, with briars and roots and branches enough to take a week to clear. The Green Man closed his eyes, bowed his head, and vanished amid the rustle as the torches on the walls burst suddenly into a cold white flame. Astonished, Sturm squinted through the shadowy thicket, but Vertumnus was truly gone, leaving behind mist and woodsmoke and the watery, metallic smell of the woods after lightning.

"Of all the trouble you might have uprooted, lad," Lord Alfred proclaimed sorrowfully, "of all you might have done or left undone, this indeed was the worst of things."

"The worst of things?" Sturm asked. "I… I don't…"

Already, with their sober efficiency, the young knights were clearing the hall of foliage and brambles. Sturm stood in the midst of the razing and repair, looking up at the assembly of Knights who had gathered beside the empty throne of Huma. The young man shook his head, trying to banish the night as he would a confusing dream.

"Will you follow me, Sturm Brightblade?" Lord Alfred asked, this time in a softer voice. Gunthar and Stephan closed ranks behind him, their ceremonial armor glittering almost blindingly. From their places amid the wreckage of Vertumnus's visit, Lord Adamant and Lord Boniface joined the formidable triad.

Like suns, the lad thought. Like suns and meteors. I cannot approach them, and it is hard even to look at them.